The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, on Saturday slammed his counterpart in the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, for allegedly stoking religious bias in a bid to win the 2023 presidential election.
Tinubu said the former vice president was a hypocrite for using the issue of a Muslim-Muslim ticket as a political strategy, adding that Atiku was exhibiting traits of desperation by stoking religious bias on national television to win the election.
The former Lagos State governor stated this in a statement by his media officer, Tunde Rahman, while reacting to claims by Atiku during an interview with Arise News on Friday that he dropped Tinubu as a running mate while running for president in 2007 because they were both Muslims.
“Atiku has no business raising the issue of a Muslim-Muslim ticket except as a hypocrite. Perhaps he believes people have forgotten his antics during the 1993 election. After he woefully lost his bid to be the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, what did he do? He canvassed and lobbied harder than anyone to become the running mate to late Chief MKO Abiola. When it benefitted him personally, Atiku did not see anything wrong with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. He saw everything right in such a ticket as long as he was on it.
“We are saddened to see such a man become unhinged from the truth. So obsessed is he with his quest for office, Atiku is willing to render any form of untruth if he thinks it might gain him a single vote. Atiku may want to be President. However, all he has shown is that he is pathological.”
“I feel sorry for dear old Atiku. Love of his own ambition has eclipsed his relationship with the truth and an honest account of the past. We formed the AC without his knowledge. When (former) President (Olusegun) Obasanjo virtually exiled him from the PDP, we lent him our support by giving him the Action Congress platform for the 2007 election,” the statement quoted the former Lagos governor as saying.
Tinubu further described Atiku as a man with a “paucity of character and love of intrigue”.
Also, the National Chairman of the South West Agenda for Asiwaju 2023, Senator Adedayo Adeyeye, accused the PDP of distracting Nigerians by campaigning against the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC. Adeyeye said the bigger issue was the fact that the opposition party jettisoned its North-South power rotation formula prescribed by its constitution.
The senator said, “The PDP is trying very hard to put the issue of Muslim-Muslim ticket on the front burner. But to me and for any patriotic Nigerian, it is a mere distraction. It is a desperate attempt by the PDP to clutch at any straw at all when they are just too aware that they are headed for the dungeon.
“So, those who are promoting this should know too well that they are just desperate to clutch any straw to keep them afloat because it is their futile attempt to prevent their dropping into the bottom of the sea.”
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