VON DG Blasts Atiku Over Comment On South East Exclusion

Founding member of All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has de­scribed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s attack on President-elect Bola Tinubu’s transition as political hypocrisy.

The Eastern Updates recalls that Atiku who is the presidential candidate of Peo­ples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded election had decried the absence of any Igbo person on the membership list of Tinu­bu’s transition committee.

While reacting to Atiku’s statement, to the Okechukwu, who is also the Director General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), said Atiku’s attempt to play the advocate for Igbo interest amounts to shed­ding of Crocodile tears, recalling how the former Vice President brazenly breached the zoning ar­rangement in PDP and the zon­ing convention of president from north to south and vice versa.

Maintaining that Atiku’s attempts to stand in for Ndigbo is a clear example of medicine after death, Okechukwu noted that Atiku’s betrayal of Ndigbo during the PDP Presidential pri­mary election was the deepest and unkindest cut.

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He stated: ‘I make bold to state that the former Vice Pres­ident had long lost the moral high ground to parade himself or even pontificate as a friend of Ndigbo. It’s sheer hypocrisy and cannot wipe out the injury inflicted on Igbo members of PDP by our dear brother-in-law.

‘One remembers with nos­talgia the deep attachment of Ndigbo to PDP, even when His Excellency, Dr Alex Ekwueme, the party’s pioneer chairman has shoved aside at the Jos con­vention in 1999. They repeated the same, which was even more painful when President Buhari nominated Rt.Hon. Chuba Ok­adigbo as his running mate in the 2003 presidential election and Rt.Hon. Edwin Ume-Ezeoke as his running mate in the 2007 presidential election.

‘Even though I subscribe to inclusive politics, His Excellency, Atiku Abubukar had all it takes to have supported Peter Obi for the 2023 PDP’s presidential tick­et during the party’s primary election.

‘But, here was a man who pulled out from PDP in 2014, de­fected to APC in protest against former President Goodluck Jonathan’s breach of South to North rotation convention of presidency, claiming that Gov­ernor Nyesom Wike’s ambition compelled him to recontest the PDP presidential primary. That is a no brainer.’

On why he is peeved by Ati­ku’s objective observation on the transition committee list, Okechukwu, said nobody should fight any proxy war on behalf of Ndigbo, stressing that ‘Ndigbo are like the fabled Beetle, and nobody can kill the Beetle.’

He said ‘We are the fabled Beetle, we are Zikists and pa­triots par excellence more than any other tribe. Atiku was in his statement shedding mere Croco­dile tears.’

‘I stand to be contradicted; we invest wherever we live and we reside in all the nooks and crannies of our dear country. Our stance remains, let the Ea­gle perch as well as the Dove, he said.

The Eastern Updates