A foundational member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Osita Okechukwu, on Friday said former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has shown that he belongs to the class of anti-democrats.
Okechukwu was reacting to Atiku’s interview with BBC Hausa Service where he said “if a younger candidate emerges through a competitive primary election, he would support and mentor such a person.”
Addressing journalists in Abuja, Okechukwu argued that by elevating the so-called “competitive primary” above Nigeria’s cherished rotation and zoning convention, the delicate unity glue that has sustained the Fourth Republic since 1999, Atiku undermined a fundamental pillar of the nation’s democracy.
He recalled that Atiku himself has been a direct beneficiary of zoning and rotation, but paradoxically led the campaign against it in 2014, and won the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, primary where no southern presidential aspirant contested.
According to Okechukwu, discarding zoning in favour of “dollarised primary” dressed up as democracy represents “the height of anti-democratic conduct.”
Okechukwu said: “Among the cardinal tenets of democracy, the first is the unity of our dear fatherland, and the second is the conduct of free and fair elections.
“Atiku is now waving expensive, monetised, and exclusionary primaries as his banner of democracy, while downplaying the very convention that guarantees equity, inclusion, and stability in our plural society.”
Okechukwu further noted that Atiku’s pronouncement confirms long-standing fears that he seeks power not to strengthen democratic institutions, but to erode the very principles that built the Nigerian project.
