Fireworks as APC calls out Atiku for playing ethnic card to sway Northern votes

The Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has been accused of playing the ethnic card in his quest for power ahead of the 2023 polls.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) said Atiku has committed a serious “Freudian slip’’ by his statement at an interactive session with the Arewa Joint Committee in Kaduna on Saturday, Oct. 15 when he said for the 2023 presidential poll the average Northerner need somebody from the North and also understands that part of the country and has been able to build bridges across the country.

“Freudian slip” or parapraxis is defined as an error in speech, memory, or physical action that occurs due to the interference of an unconscious subdued wish or internal train of thought.

“This is what the Northerner needs. It doesn’t need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate. I stand before you as a pan-Nigerian of northern origin,’’ Persecondnews quotes Atiku as saying.

But describing him as a tribal jingoist, the APC Presidential Campaign Council said Atiku’s speech was ‘the worst expression of ethnocentric opportunism ever uttered by a former Nigerian Vice-President.

In a statement signed by the council’s Director, Media and Publicity, Mr Bayo Onanuga, a copy of which was obtained by Persecondnews, said the PDP flag bearer’s speech demonstrated ‘’how low a man honoured with the second highest office of the Nigerian Constitution is willing to sink in search of a perennial wild goose chase after the highest office in the land.’’

“It confirms the argument that Atiku has feasted on such base, cheap, primordial sentiments to use the masses and the elite of the North as the ladder to ascend to power since 1989 without any dividends to show.

“In clear terms, Atiku who stole the PDP ticket with a similar mindset has cast himself as a northern candidate, who the people from his region should solely support.

“We view Atiku’s public declaration which framed him as an ethnic and regional champion as unbecoming for a man who was once a former Vice-President of Nigeria. But we are not surprised by his desperate position.

“Atiku has resorted to whipping up ethnic sentiments, knowing that his chances of being elected have become a mirage. He has himself, not anybody else, to blame for his expected electoral misfortune. First, he broke the fundamental rules of power rotation in his party and the country,’’ Onanuga, a former Managing Directorof News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), stated.

Dismissing Atiku’s claims as a detribalized Nigeria as pure hogwash, he said the Nigerian public now know better that a man who has been campaigning as a so-called unifier of our disparate groups, is a tribal jingoist, who has now totally eviscerated all pretensions to being a detribalised Nigerian.

“Atiku only pays lip service to national unity, despite that it features as one of the five cardinal points of his so-called ‘Covenant with Nigerians.’ The facade is over, he is now fully naked before the Nigerian people.”

However, political watchers said Atiku might have violated Section 97 of the Electoral Act 2022.

The Act states: “A candidate, person or association that engages in campaigning or broadcasting based on religious, tribal or sectional reason to promote or oppose a particular political party or the election of a particular candidate, commits an offence under this Act and is liable on conviction to (a) a maximum fine of N1m or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both and (b) in the case of a political party, to a maximum of N10m.’’

Also reacting to the Atiku’s speech, APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Felix Morka, described it as bad, especially at such a time that Nigeria is preaching unity.

“It is beyond the pale for a senior citizen and a former Vice-President of the Federal Republic to so brazenly instigate strife and disunity in our country in pursuit of his befuddled political self-interest.

“But it is not surprising coming from a desperate and serial failed candidate for the office of President. If, as Atiku believes the average Northerner needs a Northern President now, after a Northern President, when will they ever not need a Northern President?

“What does Atiku think the average Southerner needs? Why is it about what the average Northerner needs, or even what the average Southerner may need? Why is it not about what Nigeria and Nigerians need?

“Nigerians need bold and visionary leadership anchored on a firm commitment to transcendental national unity, over and above ethnic or sectional obsessions.

“Atiku’s words ring loud of extreme and mindless desperation and such an extremely desperate man cannot and must not be entrusted with the most important job of President – a job whose core duty is that of leading, uniting and working in the best interest of all in an ethnoreligious, pluralistic society as Nigeria. Our country does not need this kind of highly inflammable rhetoric now or ever.’’

“The cat has finally been let out of the bag of him that pays lip service to unity while working hard to undermine our national unity. Our Northern citizens and patriots know far better than what Atiku thinks, and will not walk down that slippery slope with him,’’ Morka said.

The Labour Party has lent its voice to the criticisms trailing the comment with the spokesman of the Peter Obi-Ahmed Datti Presidential Campaign Council, Mr Yunusa Tanko, demanding a public apology from Atiku.

“It is unfair for somebody who had been in the saddle of leadership of this country to play the ethnic card as a way of generating support.

“Our principal has made it clear long before now that even when people are trying to play ethnic agenda, nobody should look at him as an Igbo candidate. Our movement is a Nigerian project for the Nigerian people.

“So, in the interest of our democracy and unity of this country, which of course we represent, I think the former vice-president should apologise to Nigerians in such a way that it would show him as a true leader of a free country.

“Our principal has made it clear too that if there are issues that have to do with his co-candidate, he would be able to answer them personally. I know he prefers to speak on issues like this personally,’’ he said.