- Okechukwu, also a foundation member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), pointed a finger of blame at at atiku.
- He stated that Atiku sacrificed unity and statemanship for parochial political interests.
Mr Osita Okechukwu, the Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON) has said that the loss of Peoples Democratic Party at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) is not unconnected to the greedy disposition of Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku was PDP’s presidential election in the last election.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, Okechukwu said he fully understands the grief of the opposition parties over the judgement of the Tribunal.
Okechukwu, also a foundation member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), however pointed a finger of blame at at atiku.
He said that although the main opposition PDP had bright chances of bouncing back through the 2023 presidential election, the political greed of the party’s candidate, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, denied the party victory.
Okechukwu said that Atiku should have played the role of statesman by throwing support for his erstwhile running mate Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate divided the opposition party.
“Atiku dealt PDP a huge blow from which it might be difficult to recover.”
He dismissed claims that the petitioners had maintained that President Bola Tinubu was not qualified to run and allegations of irregularities in the conduct of the election as well as the failure to electronically transmit results in real time were fatal to the respondents’ case.
“Those intricate webs could have been resolved if Atiku had obeyed the zoning convention, supported Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate it could been simply an all southern bout.
“The Wike Masquerade couldn’t have emerged. That would have meant that the bulk of votes he garnered could have been credited to PDP.
“Atiku divided PDP’s votes irreparably, all the votes Labour Party garnered were from the party’s stronghold, minus voted warehoused by the former Vice President who naively forgot that northern voters are one of the most sophisticated in the country, but believed that northern electorate would behave like children in a dormitory waiting for directives on how to vote,” he said.
He stated that Atiku sacrificed unity and statemanship for parochial political interests.
“To be honest, my take is that the opposition lost the election that day in 2022, when Atiku Abubakar trampled on the presidential zoning convention, which governed the 4th Republic Nigeria and was also embedded in his party’s Constitution.
“Recall that Atiku earned accolades when he stormed out of PDP Convention in 2014 in protest that President Goodluck Jonathan was breaching the zoning convention. And, in 2018, Governor Nyesom Wike hosted PDP Convention in Port Harcourt and ensured that only northern presidential aspirants contested for the presidential ticket as a way of honouring the zoning convention.
“So, it is obvious that when Atiku sacrificed statesmanship on the altar of narrow political ambition, one concluded that he had wittingly or unwittingly fatally wounded the fabric of PDP. And, going by the time worn cliché, a divided house cannot stand, Nigerians should recognise that Atiku by his greed denied PDP a possible victory.”
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