The Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria and founding member of the All Progressives Congress, Osita Okechukwu, Thursday in Abuja, berated the Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, over his stance against the party’s zoning of the 2023 presidency to the South.
This is as he said Bala and his party were being opportunistic with their position on zoning, adding that the governor and Peoples Democratic Party were only trying to undermine Nigerians’ voting preferences.
Okechukwu’s reaction comes hours after the Bauchi state governor who, after a visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, told correspondents that the APC’s move to zone the presidency to the South is no threat to the PDP because his party’s strategy is to “whip up ethnoreligious sentiment.”
Bala, who was in Abeokuta on Thursday as part of political consultations ahead of his presidential ambition, held a closed-door meeting with the former president.
However, Okechukwu noted that the governor’s disposition exudes a lack of dynamism in the political paradigm of the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party.
He maintained that the PDP has proven that it is incapable of outshining the APC, especially when the unity and prosperity of Nigeria is not its priority.
He said: “I think if the statement credited to him is correct, His Excellency, Bala Mohammed and by extension PDP, is simply being opportunistic by saying that APC’s zoning of presidency to the South is not a threat to the PDP, because if we put it to the North, it will give us more electoral victory. That’s ethnic chauvinism, simple.
“The Bauchi State governor and PDP seem to forget that Nigerians are fair-minded and uphold justice and equity in their voting preferences. That was why the late Moshood Abiola of the Social Democratic Party, defeated Bashir Tofa in his Kano State home in 1993.
“In 2023, Nigerians are going to repeat that feat by acknowledging President Muhammadu Buhari and APC’s decision to do the right things for national unity, peace, and progress.
“To me, the doctrine of swap of offices between the north and the south is a masterstroke by Mr. President and good for APC and Nigerians in every material particular. It is not only a threat to our sister political party, the PDP, but also signals their imminent defeat. My friend governor’s reaction seems inspired by a sense of defeatism and phobia for APC.”
The VoN Chief added that after only seven years in opposition, PDP has retained its “character of deception, duplicity, selfishness, promise and fail.”
“Otherwise, how can a rational political party flagrantly and unscrupulously breach its constitution, which expressly ingrained zoning?” he asked.
On the notion that PDP’s strategy could be aimed at garnering more votes from the north, the APC Chieftain insisted that the Bauchi governor may be speaking on behalf of those who downplay the political sophistication of the north and their abiding faith in equity, natural justice, and good conscience.
While alleging that Bala may have forgotten that a latent vote bank would be created in the South through a southern presidential candidate, Okechukwu stated: “The north cannot be led by the nose by Governor Mohammed and his co-travelers. Have we forgotten how notable northern politicians like Abubakar Rimi, Umaru Shinkafi, Adamu Ciroma, Dr Sola Saraki et al out of overriding public interest and uncommon patriotism constructed the zoning convention, which birthed the 4th Republic as the longest democratic era in the annals of Nigerian history?
“I am confident that Nigerians cannot forget in a hurry how PDP nurtured Nigeria towards becoming the World Poverty Capital, gross unemployment and palpable insecurity by their squandermania and share-the-money syndrome which became its slogan.
“Nigerians know that those monies PDP shared among themselves and their cronies were budgeted for critical infrastructure and social development of our dear countrymen.”
He said it is, therefore, ironical that the same PDP is struggling to absolve itself of “squandering” money budgeted for military equipment, roads, rails, education, and healthcare.
Okechukwu continued, “Or do we forget the less than transparent sale of national assets and State-owned Enterprises, where the sordid agreements like that of DISCOs are more or less tailored by the tenant for the Federal Government, who is supposed to be the landlord.
“The tenancy-tailored agreements had made it impossible to unbundle the non-performing DISCOs and free Nigerians from the yoke. That is the darkness we cannot easily overcome.
“One flatly disagrees with those who say that APC and PDP are the same because whereas our great party invested in critical infrastructure, PDP shared Nigeria’s money for temporary happiness.
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