Victor Ogunje in Ado Ekiti
As predicted by the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) Vice Presidential Candidate, Senator Kashim Shettima, a group loyal to the course of Bola Ahmed Tinubu presidency, has told the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to get prepared to quit politics after the 2023 poll.
A pro-Tinubu group, acting under the nomenclature of National Unity Movement for Bola Ahmed Tinubu (NUMBAT), told Atiku that the ruling party was resolute to work hard and defeat him in the impending election, thereby signaling the end of his political relevance in the country.
The Director General of NUMBAT and former House of Representatives member, Hon. Bamidele Faparusi, said this yesterday in Ado Ekiti.
Faparusi spoke on the heels of a statement credited to Shettima during an interaction with business moguls in Lagos recently that Tinubu would trounce Atiku and consign him to retirement in DUBAI, after the 2023 poll.
He said that the statement credited to Shettima was made in good faith, and shouldn’t be regarded as mere comic relief because Tinubu has enormous followers across the six geopolitical zones in the country to make the prediction a reality.
The APC leader boasted that his group would mobilise across the zones to garner over five million votes to make Tinubu/Shettima presidency a reality.
Faparusi added that winning the presidential poll would be a tall order for Atiku, whom he said has fallen out of relevance and contention on account of multifaceted crises rocking the PDP.
He said that it would deal a fatal blow on Nigerians for Atiku, who could not unite his fractured party to be handed the mandate to superintend over a pluralistic and complex nation like Nigeria.
Faparusi said: “The statement made by the APC Vice presidential candidate that Abubakar Atiku will be retired to Dubai after the 2023 presidential poll was a statement of fact. The APC is on ground to conquer his political machinery and defeat him as done in 2019.
“The APC’s Presidential Candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is a man of the people. He is well accepted to all Nigerians regardless of race, creed, ethnicity and religion.
“The signs that the PDP and other wailers in the Labour Party will be disgraced had started emerging. They flew the kite of fake certificate against Tinubu, they failed. They resorted to propaganda over Muslim-Muslim ticket, they crash- landed. What else can they do?
“Rather than nosedive, Tinubu’s political prowess is gathering more traction and momentum. The Arewa groups, Afenifere, Ohanaeze, PANDEF, Middle Belt Forum and others had found Tinubu as one Pan-Nigerian leader, who can unite our nation.
“Nigeria can’t afford to elect a leader that will be egregiously sectional. A man that is coming to pursue narrow agenda and interest is not good for Nigeria at this point and only Tinubu has the qualities among all the presidential candidates to bring us together based on his antecedents as a former governor of Lagos State.
“Let us go into archive before making our decision in 2023. Tinubu’s cabinet in Lagos between 1999 and 2007 was like a mini Nigeria. All ethnic nationalities were represented. Little wonder, he stands out tall among his contenders and contemporaries, including Atiku in this game.
“Atiku claims of being a unifier is an aberration, as nothing in his antecedents pointed to that fact aside his politically motivated marriages across the country. Tinubu can best be described as the true unifer having over the years worked to support the political, economic and social aspirations of people across the country, of which Atiku was one of Tinubu’s beneficiaries.
“So, he (Atiku) should get prepared for disengagement from the politics of this nation after his defeat in 2023.”
