A former Vice President and a chieftain of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has appealed to party leaders to jettison zoning of the presidential ticket just as he appealed to them to uphold justice and fairness.
Atiku Abubakar said this in his opening remarks during the 94th PDP NEC meeting, on Thursday, in Abuja.
In his words, “Where the President comes from has never been the problem of Nigeria neither will it be the solution. There is no such thing as a president from southern Nigeria, or a president from northern Nigeria. There is only one, a president from Nigeria, for Nigeria and for Nigerians.
“The Peoples Democratic Party has the right to determine its rules on how the party should be governed, the people of Nigeria have the right to determine who governs them.
“Those of us who served in the constitutional conference, which drafted the current constitution of Nigeria should remember that after we finished drafting the constitution, we all met as members of the constitutional conference and resolved to correct the injustice that was done to a particular part of this country.
“And we said, in whichever party you found yourself, your presidential candidate must come from the southwest, because Abiola had won the election, it was annulled. Not only was his election annulled, he was killed.”
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Atiku ABubakar also recalled how he rejected a plot by the party’s governors to deny the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a second term.
He continued, “Distinguished members of NEC, in 2003, all the PDP governors met at the villa and said they were not going to support President Obasanjo for a second term, that I should run.
“I now referred them to the resolution of NEC, where NEC decided that power should remain in the South-West for eight years. How do you now want me to go against the resolution of NEC? And I turn it down. And we moved on.
“So, this country has a sense of fairness. This country has a sense of justice. This country has a sense of fairness. Therefore, this thing that is inbuilt in our party, we should be able to use it, to imbibe it to make sure today’s deliberations are in the best interest of our party.”
