A pan-Igbo sociopolitical pressure group, South East Revival Group (SERG) has called on the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to stop fanning embers of tribal sentiments during his campaigns, especially with regards to the South-East.

The group, which urged the former vice president to focus on uniting his party that has its five sitting governors dissociating themselves from the presidential ambition, was reacting to Atiku’s assertion at his recent campaign visit to Anambra State that those who desire the emergence of a president of Nigeria of Igbo extraction should support his presidential bid, which he referred to as a stepping stone towards achieving their goal.

Atiku had during the campaign said: “I am going to be a stepping stone to an Igbo president in this country. I have shown it in my action because this is the third time I am running with an Igbo man. If you really want to produce a president, then, vote Atiku- Okowa ticket.” But SERG, in a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Chief Willy Ezugwu, said “Nigerians are in dire need a sincere person as president, not an individual who is swimming in tribalism and always thinking at a pedestrian level.”

According to the group, “it beats imagination that Atiku Abubakar who bluntly told the world recently that an Igbo man is not good enough to be voted for by people in the North, where he comes from, will at the same time be presenting himself as a stepping stone towards the emergence of an Igbo person as president after him.

“That is a sign of deception and any Nigerian of Igbo extraction, who is following the PDP presidential candidate is on his or her own as Atiku has already told the world that Igbos cannot be president yet he pretends to care about the Igbos because he needs Igbo votes. “Individuals like the Anambra State governor, Chukwuma Soludo, who are positioning themselves for presidency have been deceived by Atiku’s empty promises. Governor Soludo should realise that he has but one vote and if he continues to get carried away by his ambition, he will have himself to blame sooner than later. Advising Atiku to stop ethnising his campaign, SERG said it will worsen his imminent defeat in the 2023 presidential election as he has proven on many occasions than one to be unreliable. “Atiku has been pursuing a selfish presidential ambition since 1992 and have worked against every political party platform he failed to win its primary election. For instance, the serial decampee who was a civil servant contested for the office of the Adamawa State governor in 1990, 1996 and later, in 1998. Olusegun Obasanjo picked him as his running mate during the 1999 presidential election but in 2003 he rose against Obasanjo, who was a sitting president running for a second term. “By the next presidential election, he emerged the presidential candidate of the Action Congress in the 2007 presidential election. When he lost, he returned to the PDP to contest the presidential primary in 2011, and after losing out to incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, he quit the party and joined the All Progressives Congress (APC) ahead of the 2015 presidential election, and contested the presidential primary but lost to Muhammadu Buhari.

“Having lost, in 2017, he returned again to the PDP and emerged the party’s presidential candidate during the 2019 presidential election. He could have decamped again after losing to Buhari in 2019 but knowing that it would be easier to buy his way through in the PDP, he remained and manipulated the presidential primary to his benefit against the party’s zoning arrangement, which favoured the South-East he now claims to care about.”

SERG maintained that is really a sad narrative that the PDP nominated Atiku in 2019 and for the 2023 presidential candidate after he had warned Nigerians in Enugu in November 2014 as an APC presidential aspirant that a vote for PDP in 2015 general election was a vote for continuation of insurgency, kidnapping, oil bunkering, corruption and unemployment, among other evils.

“He worked against the PDP and when Buhari won, he quickly returned to the same party he accused of breeding insurgency, kidnapping, oil bunkering, corruption, and unemployment in pursuit of his selfish ambition.

“At the last count, Atiku has unsuccessfully contested five times for the Office of the President of Nigeria since 1992/1993 and ahead of the 2023 presidential election Atiku scuttled PDP zoning arrangement at a time it was the turn of the South-East. “Good enough, Nigerians have decided to make a choice and opted for balance, equity, fairness and justice by finding Mr. Peter Obi of the Labour Party as worthy successor of President Buhari. “Like a prophet, SERG had advised all political parties in Nigeria to zone their presidential ticket to the South- East, warning of the consequences of doing otherwise, but the PDP and APC failed to heed the clarion call. “However, having seen the level of marginalization of the South-East and the competence of Peter Obi as a prepared leader, Nigerians irrespective of political party affiliation and across the country’s six geopolitical zones, pitched their tent with Labour Party’s presidential candidate in the interest of justice, peace, equity, and national transformation,” SERG stated.

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