2023: Oshiomhole attacks Atiku over “damaging statement”

As the 2023 election gathers steam, a former National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has criticised Atiku Abubakar for ‘not respecting the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) constitution’ and for his anti-Yoruba and Igbo comment in Kaduna State in October.

POLITICS NIGERIA reports that Oshiomhole who described Atiku’s statement about Yoruba and Igbo people as “damaging” also said the former vice-president is an antithesis of how he portrays himself in the public.

“If you are not yet president and you are not yet obeying agreement, and Nigerians are talking of national unity, and you disobey the position of your party constitution which talks about rotation in order to service that unity, and you can go to some parts of the country and say don’t vote for Igbo, don’t vote for Igbo, don’t vote for Yoruba, those are very damaging statements,” Oshiomhole said in a video sighted by this newspaper.

“It would have been neater to say ‘don’t vote for this person, Peter Obi, or don’t vote for Bola Tinubu, that is fine, you talk to their persons. But when you talk to their race, don’t vote for Igbo man. So if he is Igbo, no matter how good, he is a bad man in his eyes. If he is Yoruba, no matter how good, he is a bad man in his eyes.”

Critics have said that had the PDP stuck religiously to its principle of zoning, Atiku wouldn’t have emerged its flag-bearer.

According to them, the 75-year-old was allowed to contest, and eventually won the presidential ticket based on an in-house agreement that opposed the provision of the party’s constitution.

Consequently, there are growing calls among PDP stalwarts spearheaded by Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, asking Iyorchia Ayu, the National Chairman of the party, to step down from the position to allow sectional balance in the party. Atiku meanwhile does not want to meddle in that affair.