Atiku: I Often Contemplate Whether or Not to Contest for PDP Presidential Ticket

Chuks Okocha

A former Vice President and the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 presidential elections, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, yesterday, said he was often in a dilemma over whether or not to continue with his presidential aspiration in the current dispensation.

In a narrative sent to newsmen on what he said over his comments on zoning, Atiku said, “Sometimes, when I lay down on my bed, I begin to wonder whether I should go for this thing or not, because, the challenges are just too many.”

The narrative titled, “What Atiku said to ‘The Fix Nigeria Group’ on zoning and age”, he said, “I have never seen this country have so many challenges at the same time. Sometimes,when I lay down on my bed, I begin to wonder whether I should go for this thing or not, because, the challenges are just too many.

“All my life, I have never seen the country in such a bad situation. As far as the unity of the country is concerned, we are more divided, in fact more divided even than when we fought the civil war. We were never as divided as this.

“We never had breakdown of law and order like this. When we fought the civil war, it was confined in a particular place, every other place was peaceful and we didn’t have this kind of poverty, where even the farmer could not go the field to plant what he will eat, not to talk of commercial quantity.

“So, it is daunting task for anybody to come and turn things around. And, I have heard people talk about ‘oh… we should give it to a young man, or we should not give it to an old man, we should give it to a middle aged man, and so on and so forth.

“Of course, they have the freedom of speech and they can say anything. But, fundamentally, the constitution says all of us can contest. The constitution has not barred anyone of us. There is no zoning in the constitution. There is none. I was a member of the Constituent Assembly that drafted this very constitution,” he said of the challenges in Nigeria.

He said “as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country, we felt that there should be a sense of belonging,” adding that, he had a heated argument with the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme over zoning.

His words: “I remember that I had a very heated argument with the late Dr. Alex Ekwueme at the Constitutional Conference. I said, ‘Alex, you want to bring in zoning, because you want to breakaway this country.’ We had very heated debate with him and later on, I apologised to him and told him: ‘You reason better than myself. I was emotional in my reasoning. I think the zonal thing that you are proposing is a good thing.

“I assure you that as far as I am concerned, I will observe and implement whatever will bring about the peace, unity and stability of this country. I met an Emir three nights ago, he is not from my state. He is from one of the other states and he said to me that, ‘You know why I support you strongly to be president?’

“What are you looking for at this age? You have married finish, you don born finish. You have everything. But my fear is that if I go and give it to a young man, he may be looking for women to marry; looking for a car to buy or a house to build. Now, what are we saying?’ I laughed. I said: ‘Well, it doesn’t follow.

“God endows leadership. You can have a young thirty years old man and he will do better than an old man. So, leadership is an endowed attribute of God. We should try to look for such a person, who has been endowed,” he explained.”

On the Electoral Act and the forthcoming presidential primary of the PDP, Atiku said, “In the draft Electoral Act, we have three options: direct, indirect and consensus. Each political party will now decide which option it will adopt. Then, we will know.

“But my senses tell me that the PDP will go for the indirect primaries, because, we believe that that is the most efficient and that is the less expensive and also it brings politically enlightened members of the party to make a very important decision for the party, on behalf of the party.

“So, we still have a little bit of time to wait. Hopefully, before the end of this month, we will have the Electoral Bill signed into law.”

He said, what is important is that, “We have people, who are already statutory delegates, meaning, governors and former governors; senators and former senators; members of the House of Representatives and former members of the House of Representatives – who are still members of our party. Do you understand?

“And then, we have elected delegates, right? Now, these elected delegates are the people that we don’t know. But we already know who the statutory delegates are. So, currently, the statutory delegates should be our targets. These are the people that we must reach out to until the party lets us know, who the elected delegates are. This is how we will form the Electoral College that will elect the candidate. I believe that, you will work towards.

“Many of you are friends with members of the National Assembly; many of you are friends with current and past governors and so on and so forth. These are people that you should target or you should lobby and let them know that this is the person that is best suited for our party, if you want to rescue the country,” Atiku stated.