Former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo has questioned the rationale behind the decision of his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in picking Atiku Abubakar as presidential candidate ahead of next year’s general election.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that Atiku hails from Adamawa State, a state in northern Nigeria and was Obasanjo’s deputy between 1999 and 2007.
Obasanjo pointed out that the decision is not politically correct and in the spirit of the understanding between the North and the South of Nigeria going by the fact that President Muhammadu Buhari who is from the North will be completing his two terms by May next year.
“’I am very much aware that it’s the turn of the South to produce the next President of Nigeria. I was part of the meeting when the agreement was made between Northern and Southern Leaders’, Obasanjo was widely quoted to have said yesterday during a meeting with Bola Tinubu who is the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
‘I am even surprised PDP gave her ticket to another North candidate.’
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‘It will be an injustice to the South if the North retains Power after 8 years of rule’, he was quoted as saying.
Obasanjo spoke today during the visit of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to his Hilltop home in Abeokuta.
“We will do the right thing when the time comes,” the former leader said during the closed-door meeting.
Apart from painting Atiku Abubakar in unsavoury colours in his memoir, Obasanjo believes Atiku should never lead Nigeria.
Africa Daily News, New York recalls tha in 2018, he famously said: ‘If I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me. If I do not know, yes. But once I know, Atiku can never enjoy my support’.
The PDP is yet to react to the development.
