A foundation member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr Osita Okechukwu has urged Nigerians to be reticent and not driven by His Excellency Atiku Abubakar’s hysteria to be president at all cost.
Okechukkwu spoke to journalists on Tuesday in reaction to the release of President Bola Tinubu’s certificate to Atiku by the Chicago State University on order of court.
The documents released on Monday are generating controversies, with many observers identifying what they perceived to be discrepancies.
But, Okechukwu, who is the Director General of Voice of Nigeria, (VON), said Atiku, the PDP presidential candidate during the 2023 polls, had no moral high ground to talk about the rule of law.
He queried: “Honestly let’s not cherry pick, can an elder statesman who vehemently breached the rotation convention in his party’s constitution and the subsisting national rotation convention sincerely talk of the rule of law? For it’s trite law that he who comes to equity must come with clean hands.
“Whereas one like most of our countrymen were concerned over the whirlwind raised over the Chicago State University’s Papers, however, the bottom line is that only Diploma was deposed to INEC.”
Okechukwu appealed that “the survival of our fledgling democracy and the fragile unity of our dear country are of premium importance, especially with anti-democratic wind blowing in our West Africa sub-region.
“Let’s not forget that Atiku anointed Tinubu by deliberately breaching the PDP’s Constitution and the national rotation convention which uphold equity, natural justice and good conscience as the armour unifying our dear country.”
He challenged Atiku, instead of raising whirlwind, “to be bold enough, step down from his high horse and profusely apologise to the entire membership of the PDP he betrayed and his in-laws – Ndigbo, who put all their eggs in the PDP’s basket for over 20 years, hoping that PDP will oblige them their turn in 2023 presidential election.”
Okechukwu further maintained that “we better resist the temptations of following His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar’s inordinate ambition drive to become president to set our dear country on fire.”
He cautioned that, “we must not undermine our democracy, which has been improving from every election cycle. Things are hard and agreed, the 2023 presidential election has its flaws, but we cannot risk our fledgling democracy to the wind storm of anti-democrats blowing in our West African sub-region.
“Albeit, democracy we all know is not revolutionary, but evolutionary. Methinks, Atiku’s greed is wittingly or unwittingly driving him to hysteria of either grabbing the presidency by any means or pulling down the house.
“Repeat in the eyes of the law, outside cherry picking, Atiku cannot be absolved of infractions on Section 7 of the PDP’s Constitution and the ethos of rotation convention which governed the 4th Republic.
“Recall that in 2014, Atiku stormed out PDP’s convention when Jonathan breached rotation convention and in 2019, only northern presidential aspirants contested PDP’s primary in Port Harcourt and he was the greatest beneficiary and in 2022 he betrayed his great party. Okechukwu submitted.
Okechukwu remarked that if Atiku had played statesmanship and hearkened to the 4th Republic embedded rotation convention and that of the PDP, “the presidential election could have been a southern affair between Tinubu vs Obi.”
