Atiku Abubakar, the former vice president, has revealed that Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the national head of the All Progressives Congress (APC), wanted to be his running mate in the 2007 presidential election.
Tinubu made the proposal on his own, according to Abubakar, as one of the prerequisites for receiving the party’s presidential ticket in 2007.
In order to involve the South East in political participation or power-sharing, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart announced that he rejected the requirement and picked Senator Ben Obi as his running partner.
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While he is not opposed to rotating the office, the former vice president believes it is time for him to become the next president since he has paid his dues.
“We conceived and formulated this zoning policy in the party simply because we wanted every section of our nation to feel like it belonged, and I myself have paid my dues on the topic of zoning,” he stated.
“Many of you were part of our administration when all of the PDP governors came to me in 2003 and told me I should run for president, and I said no.” Why should I care whether power is kept in the south-west, as we have agreed?
“Some of those governors that supported me, some of them went to jail, some of them were kicked out of their offices, we made sure that we kept the policy. Therefore, you cannot come and try to imply that the PDP has not been following the zoning policy.
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“Some say the south-east has not been given the chance. When I joined the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) which my friend Bola (Tinubu) set up, he gave me a set of conditions for giving me the ticket, one of which was that I should make him the vice-president.
“I said no, ‘I’m not going to make you vice-president,’ instead, I took senator Ben Obi. So there is absolutely no reason they should say that there is a deliberate attempt to exclude the south-east in political participation or power-sharing.
“So I thought I should disabuse your mind and of course, as an enlightened political class, I don’t think there’s any deliberate policy to exclude anybody in this country.”
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