Prominent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Demola Olarewaju, has declared that the All Progressives Congress (APC) thrives on ethnic baiting as a strategy to win elections.
Writing on X, Olarewaju, one of the spokespersons of the PDP presidential campaign council during the 2023 elections, stated that the hateful ethnic rhetoric is at the core of the APC’s electoral strategy.
“APC thrives in ethnic games and trying to play ethnic games with APC is conceding everything to APC. Stop playing ethnic games. They’re using it to distract.
“APC has nothing to sell to Nigerians and nothing to sell to even the Yorubas except this ‘Nigeria hates us and Tinubu is fighting for us’,” he wrote.
Writing on the 2027 elections, he stated: “Tinubu is using these orchestrated Yoruba vs Igbo silliness to rally Yorubas behind himself, confident that when elections come, anti-Fulani rhetorics would turn the Igbos either into allies through selected politicians like Benjamin Kalu, Pius Anyim, Orji Uzor Kalu etc who will preach “support Tinubu to prevent Fulani’s return” or the strategy will push SE votes to standalone and allow him another pathway to victory as in 2023.
“By 2026 exactly, you’ll start hearing of how Tinubu has emasculated Fulani businessmen for the sake of the South, how his presidency is better for all of the South, how his second term will return powers to regions etc.
“And the present combatants will suddenly remember that “instead of Fulani, let Tinubu continue”, “if XYZ cannot support ABC then let JKL continue”. People need to stop engaging their hateful ethnic rhetorics.
The only proper response to ethnocentrism is nationalism or humanism. If someone says “Igbos are this and that”, and you reply with “Yorubas too “are this or that”, you’ve fallen into the ethnocentric bigotry argument. The only proper response is either to uphold our collective humanity or emphasise that Nigeria is bigger than ethnicity.”
