Former Vice President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, is of the view that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot move forward until it admits the wrong it committed in 2011, when it gave its presidential ticket to President Goodluck Jonathan in alleged contradiction to its zoning policy.
Reacting to the declaration by the party leadership, last week, that it will stick to its zoning policy for the 2015 elections, Atiku told The Nation that “If the leadership is serious about making amends for the injustice of the past, it has to first admit that a wrong had been done and then take appropriate steps to do the right thing.”
Atiku, one of the PDP presidential aspirants that lost out in 2011, following the abandonment of the party’s zoning policy said: “It is a fact that the issue of zoning is still enshrined in the constitution as amended. However, recall that in the run up to the 2011 election, the principle of zoning as enshrined in the party was implemented in breach. If the current leadership wants to right the wrongs of the past, it has to match its intent with action. It cannot be that zoning is right for some people and it is abandoned when it comes to others.”
National Secretary of PDP, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, had told newsmen that the party will stick to its zoning policy in picking its presidential candidate for the 2015 election.
He explained that the party’s leadership’s decision was informed by the realisation that, “What has endeared the PDP to Nigerians is the zoning arrangement, which has given minority groups the hope of realising their political aspirations in the country.”
Asked if that declaration would put paid to the long drawn controversy, Atiku retorted, “You cannot eat your cake and have it. If the leadership is serious about making amends for the injustice of the past, it has to first admit that a wrong had been done and then take appropriate steps to do the right thing.
There cannot be atonement without confession. The admission of error is the first step to rectification.”
Other Nigerians, including other PDP stalwarts expressed a similar sentiment. One of them is Mike Okorie, a Lagos- based lawyer and former PDP House of Representatives aspirant in Abia State.
Responding to the PDP statement Okorie said “For more reasons than one, the statement is not conclusive of the matter. Besides, the Party is noted for policy shifts, somersault and double standard. Let us not forget in a hurry the events leading up to 2011 Presidential elections and even thereafter, when zoning was observed in the breach, if not jettisoned. Now the trillion naira question is whose turn is it for at least to produce the next Speaker, House of Representatives, not to talk of the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
