Ikenga Foundation Says Atiku’s Remarks against Igbo, Yoruba Display of Ignorance

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Ikenga Foundation yesterday took a swipe at the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, describing his remarks that the north should not vote for Igbo or Yoruba candidates as political suicide.

In a statement decrying the comments by the former vice president, the Secretary General of the Foundation, Frank Ahaneku, maintained that Atiku made the first fundamental mistake when he insisted that there was no zoning in the PDP’s constitution.

According to him, with the PDP presidential candidate now saying that the north should not support Igbo or Yoruba candidates, it was obvious that he’s not the unifier as widely trumpeted by his supporters.

The foundation noted that Ndigbo has always been supportive of the PDP in the last two decades since the dawn of the current democracy, stressing that their quest to be given a chance to become Nigeria’s president through the platform of PDP met a brick wall.

Specifically, the group maintained that the move was sabotaged with Atiku’s insistence that there was nothing like zoning in the PDP and that the field should be left open regardless of all the efforts and commitments of Ndigbo in ensuring the stability of the party.

“The PDP primaries would have favoured the South-east but was disrupted and destroyed by that singular stance of Atiku Abubakar to be involved in the primaries and refusing to stand on the positive side of history.

“This became the first political suicide Atiku committed against himself, against south east and his party.

“It was at this historic period that providence had another plan for Ndigbo when their son Peter Obi left PDP to continue the pursuit of the presidential quest as a pan Nigerian politician desirous of salvaging the nation in Labour Party (LP),” the association added.

It posited that this was Atiku’s ‘second political suicide’, this time around in Kaduna, telling the northerners not to vote for a Yoruba man or an Igbo man, describing him as a bizarre nationalist and uniting patriot.

“No sane politician from anywhere in the world would commit such political hara-kiri. Ohanaeze is not ready to speak yet, Ndigbos have left their faith and destiny in the hands of God, we are working hard in this election and doing our best.

“The northern voters are awake and they know what is in their best interest, for Atiku and those who think like him in the north, who still threaten others with controversial numbers, don’t know what God has prepared for Nigerians,” the foundation added.

According to the Ikenga Foundation, it was this kind of “impudence, impunity and speaking with air of final authority,” as displayed by Atiku that Governor Nyesom Wike had been fighting and getting support of everybody quietly.

“This comment by Atiku about the north going it alone, shows his fundamental ignorance of the provision of the constitution of Nigeria, where no one section of the country can elect a president of Nigeria.

“This cannot even stand when he understands the presidential historic realities of the country. The Igbo and Yoruba and whole of the north need peace and stability in Nigeria which an Atiku doesn’t have the knowledge or capacity to provide,” the foundation stressed.

Explaining that the group was going into this election hoping that nothing but the will of God be done, Ikenga Foundation stressed that it was now common knowledge that the agitation of the Igbo nation to be integrated after the civil war has increased in decibels in the last couple of years, leading to different types of agitation.