A founding member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Osita Okechukwu, on Tuesday dismissed a statement credited to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar that zoning is “self-defeating,” stressing that such a stance is a classic case of self-denial.
Okechukwu lamented Atiku’s stance, noting that the former VP, was one of the foremost beneficiaries of zoning within the Nigerian political sphere.
The former Director General of the Voice of Nigeria, VON, made his remark known in a state in response to inquiries from journalists on Atiku’s position.
He said: “How can one of the foremost beneficiaries of the zoning convention suddenly deny its profound significance in promoting national cohesion, inclusion, equity, peace, and justice?
“In the public domain there is throughout history the law with its legal teeth and the convention with its moral weight, governing human affairs. If there was no zoning arrangement, could Atiku have become Vice President?
“Has he forgotten why he stormed out of the PDP presidential primary process in 2014 and joined us in APC, after President Goodluck Jonathan emerged as the party’s candidate?”
Commenting further on Atiku’s statement that, “The first and most obvious question is this: how does a Southern opposition candidate realistically unseat a sitting Southern president,” Okechukwu described the remark as regrettably identity politics, “the very tendency the zoning convention was designed to minimise and noted that such rhetoric is least expected from a statesman.”
He further criticised Atiku’s argument that, “By 2027, the South would have held presidential power for approximately 18 years in the Fourth Republic, compared to about 10 years for the North.”
Okechukwu, the statement reflects “selective amnesia, as it ignores the historical reality that Northern Nigeria presided over the affairs of the country for more than four decades since our independence in 1960.
“And equity cannot be discussed in fragments or based on convenient arithmetic.”
