A founding member of All Progressives Congress, Osita Okechukwu, on Thursday faulted the contention of Bauchi State governor, Bala Mohammed, against the zoning of the party’s 2023 Presidency to the South, saying “he got it wrong on all fronts and missed the point.”
He also said that the governor’s reaction seemed to have been “inspired by sense of defeatism and phobia for APC.”
According to him, the governor’s disposition showed a lack of dynamism in the political thinking of the Peoples Democratic Party.
He said that from that comment, it was obvious that he knew PDP was incapable of upstaging APC, especially when the unity and prosperity of Nigeria are not uppermost in their calculation.
Mohammed had, after his visit to former president Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, told journalists that the decision of APC to zone the Presidency to the South was not a threat to the PDP, because his party’s strategy was to whip up ethno-religious sentiment.
But Okechukwu, who is also the Director General of Voice of Nigeria, told Journalists that the Bauchi State governor missed the point.
He said, “Methinks 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 M. K. O Abiola of the Social Democratic Party defeated Alhaji 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 the 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.
“The governor’s reaction seems inspired by sense of defeatism and phobia for APC.
“After just 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?”
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