The director of Special Media Projects and Operations of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, has chided presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, over his comment about the North’s choice of presidential candidate to vote in the 2023 presidential poll.
The former Aviation minister berated the PDP standard bearer for declaring during the Arewa town hall policy dialogue in Kaduna on Saturday that the North does not need a Yoruba or Igbo president.
“What the average Northerner needs is somebody who is from the North; he doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate or an Ibo candidate,” Atiku had stated at the event.
But reacting to Atiku’s comment, Fani-Kayode said the former vice president cannot speak for the Northen region on its choice of president.
Specifically, he noted that what Nigerians need is a president of Nigeria and not a Northern president, and not “a dying breed who still sees things from a regional, ethnic and religious prism.”
In a statement he issued in Abuja on Sunday, Fani-Kayode said, “Nigeria has moved on from that and she deserves better. Our nation will not accept an ethnic bigot and tribal champion as their President. Atiku does not speak for the North; he speaks for his deluded and blind PDP supporters and his PCC.
“Nigeria does not need a Northern or Southern President; she needs a Nigerian President and Bola Ahmed Tinubu is that President.”
Fani-Kayode pointed out that most northerners are not on the same page with Atiku, adding that, unlike the former VP and members of his “divided party”, people from the region don’t see Southerners as slaves, adding that rather, they regard their southern counterparts as being equal.
He continued: “We will not allow Atiku to do to us what he did to Wike. We will not be cheated or denied.
“It is time for power to shift to the South and an overwhelming number of the people in the North and certainly all the Northerners in the APC believe that. They recognise the fact that if we want our nation to continue to enjoy peace and remain united into the distant future. We must be fair in our dealings with one another.”
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