Reacting on Sunday, Okechukwu said Atiku’s breach of the zoning arrangement was fuelling political tensions in Northern Nigeria and across the country, thereby vindicating advocates of power rotation and the zoning convention.
“Atiku’s breach of zoning is fuelling political tensions in Northern Nigeria and by extension nationwide; thereby vindicated advocates of Nigeria’s power-rotation and zoning convention,” he said.
He appealed to Northerners to avoid ethnic identity politics driven by the ambition of one man and his associates, noting that countries such as Sudan were yet to recover from ethnic rivalry.
“The South has other presidential candidates and truly Atiku and Tinubu are ten and ten pence going by their antecedents,” Okechukwu said.
He lamented that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had yet to recover from Atiku’s breach of zoning in the 2023 presidential election.
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He argued that the 2027 contest would have been less acrimonious if the African Democratic Congress (ADC) had respected the principle of presidential power rotation and presented a southern candidate.
Okechukwu recalled how patriots such as Alhajis Abubakar Rimi, Umaru Shinkafi and Adamu Ciroma, as well as Drs Sola Saraki, Alex Ekwueme and Ogbonnaya Onu, helped the country avoid ethnic identity politics in 1999 by subordinating their personal presidential ambitions to national unity.
“Zoning advocates have consistently maintained that presidential power rotation is a vital instrument for managing Nigeria’s diversity. The current political tension demonstrates why zoning convention should not be treated as expendable item, merely to accommodate an individual’s presidential ambition. Moreso when he has no concrete solution to our economic quagmire,” he said.
He cited the relatively peaceful nature of the 1999, 2007 and 2019 presidential elections, involving Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Olu Falae, Muhammadu Buhari and Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, respectively, as evidence of how the rotation convention had helped sustain national balance.
Okechukwu also expressed concern over reports that security personnel had been deployed to protect campaign posters and billboards of presidential candidates, describing the development as troubling.
He noted the opportunity cost of assigning security personnel to political duties when the country was grappling with kidnappings, armed robberies, farmer-herder conflicts and insurgency.
He therefore urged Atiku’s supporters and other political stakeholders to stop framing the 2027 presidential contest as a zero-sum game between the North and South, warning that such rhetoric could deepen ethnic divisions and put democracy at risk.