Atiku’s Ethnocentric Comment: Ohanaeze demands apology; Tinubu campaign council kicks

The apex Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has called out the former Vice President over his divisive comment ahead of the 2023 presidential election.

And corroborating, the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council has criticized the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku, over his controversial remark against presidential candidates from Igbo and Yoruba extraction.

The apex Igbo group described the former Vice President’s utterances as ‘divisive’ politics, demanding that he should retract the statement and apologise to the Igbo nation and Southern region in its entirety.

Ohanaeze through its spokesperson, Alex Ogbonna, expressed disappointment in the speech, describing it as poignant and provocative.

“It contradicts Atiku’s claims to being a cosmopolitan and detribalized Nigerian.

“That was a very provocative remark coming from a former vice president of Nigeria. His remark perhaps brings out his mindset about the country.

“It’s a Freudian slip. Something that slips from somebody’s mouth unintentionally, reveals the person’s deep feelings about something.

“It is on record that the Igbo and the South voted for Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. They voted for Shehu Shagari, Umaru Yar’adua, and Muhammadu Buhari. So, why can’t there be reciprocity?

“He should have gone ahead with his campaigns without creating unnecessary ethnic tensions.

“That remark is abysmally low. It’s an ill-advised remark. It’s not good for the former vice president. He should find a way to withdraw that remark,” Ogbonna added.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide is disappointed by that remark by Atiku. This is because Ndigbo had voted for Shagari, Yar’Adua, and Buhari and even supported all the military rulers from the North.

“So, Ohanaeze is calling on the former vice president to apologize to Nigerians and southerners in particular on that unfortunate remark. It is a divisive one.”

Tinubu campaign council has described Atiku’s comment that Northerners should only vote for a northern candidate in 2023 as inciteful and true reflection of his intentions for Nigerians.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Director, Media and Publicity of the Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, on Sunday, October 16, 2022.

In his reaction on Sunday, Onanuga described Atiku’s speech as the “worst expression of ethnocentric opportunism ever uttered by a former Vice President.”

The statement read: “It confirms the argument that Atiku has feasted on such base, cheap, primordial sentiments to use the masses and the elite of the North as the ladder to ascend to power since 1989 without any dividends to show.

“In clear terms, Atiku who stole the PDP ticket, with a similar mindset, has cast himself as a northern candidate, who the people from his region should solely support.

“We view Atiku’s public declaration which framed him as an ethnic and regional champion as unbecoming for a man who was once a former Vice-President of Nigeria.

“But we are not surprised by his desperate position. Atiku has resorted to whipping up ethnic sentiments, knowing that his chances of being elected have become a mirage.

“He has himself, not anybody else, to blame for his expected electoral misfortune. First, he broke the fundamental rules of power rotation in his party and the country.

“The Nigerian public now knows better that a man who has been campaigning as a so-called unifier of our disparate groups is a tribal jingoist, who has now totally eviscerated all pretensions to being a detribalized Nigerian.

“Atiku only pays lip service to national unity, despite that it features as one of the five cardinal points of his so-called “Covenant with Nigerians”. The facade is over, he is now fully naked before the Nigerian people.

Recall that the former Vice President had stirred the hornet’s nest during the interactive session of the Arewa Town Hall Policy Dialogue in Kaduna State on Saturday, October 15, 2022, when he urged Northerners to bank only on a candidate from the region.

Atiku, who hails from Adamawa State, north-east Nigeria, told an audience of Hausa and Fulani people not to cast their lot with an Igbo or Yoruba for president but for someone of northern extraction.

Atiku’s words: “I know the whole of this country. I have built bridges across this country. I think the average northerner needs somebody from the North, who also understands the other parts of Nigeria and who has been able to build bridges across the rest of the country.

“This is what the northerner needs. He (a northerner) doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate or an Igbo candidate. This is what the northerner needs.”