Eight support groups that are pro-Atiku Abubakar, yesterday, dumped the former vice president demanding power be ceded to the South in 2023.
The groups are Middle Belt Network for Atiku, led by Luka Pam and Madaki Yakubu; North 4 North Support Group for Atiku, led by Mohammed Garba and Abubakar Sanni; Turaki Arewa Vanguard for Atiku, led by Musa Abdullahi and Rabiu Ibrahim; and South West Development Frontiers, led by Femi Osabinu and Olufemi Lawson.
Speaking with newsmen in Abuja, convener of the coalition, Femi Osabinu, said at 77, the former vice president should retire from active politics and instead be a statesman, while National President, Middle Belt Network for Atiku, Pam, implored Atiku to reconsider his presidential ambition and give way for the South East to produce the next president.
Spokesman of the former vice president, Paul Ibe, was not available for comments as he neither responded to calls placed to his known mobile telephone line nor the text message sent to him.
Osabinu said: “We make a clear and undiluted call on Atiku to give a second thought to his desire to contest the office of president in the elections again in 2023.
“While Atiku has served the nation with distinction, as evidenced in the fact that we have been his supporters for years, it is also undeniable that at 77 years of age, going into this race, it will be a mismatch of national priorities to support his quest, taking into consideration the unique interplay of circumstances currently confronting our country.
“Nigeria needs a young and more energetic unifier, who will be able to handle the rigours of being physically present in crisis spots to make the physical and psychological statement of government being in charge and committed to finding lasting solutions to our national challenges.
“Having been around for decades and served at different levels, up to the highest levels of government as a very influential vice president, we believe Atiku has done his tour of duty in the front row of national affairs. It is now time for him to take a back seat and play the role of elder statesman, the billings of which he has lived up to. His role, going forward, should be of providing guidance to the younger ones across ethnic, religious and partisan divisions to help build a consensus of what Nigeria should be and how she ought to go about becoming all she can be in the comity of nations.
“We are also not unmindful of the fact that Atiku abandoned the party structure of the PDP and his support groups post-2019 elections; a clear betrayal of the trust reposed in him as an encapsulation of the sum of their legitimate aspirations and hopes for Nigeria. We are equally not blind to the optics of Atiku’s preferred public association with members of the topmost echelons of the Nigerian elite, showing he has lost touch with the reality of the suffering masses of Nigeria, who are bitten by the current bugs of the economy and the potential drifting of the political ship of state.”
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