Okechukwu contrasts Kenya’s presidential poll, 2023 elections
[FILES] INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu. Photo; FACBOOK/INECNIGERIA
A Chieftain of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has drawn a parallel between next year’s general elections in Nigeria and the recent presidential poll in the Republic of Kenya.
Okechukwu noted that apart from the electronic transmission of results that determined a credible outcome, the presence of Nigeria’s former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the presidential ballot throws up another similarity.
He recalled how Nigerians waited with high expectations for the 79th Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Executive Council to “take a profound decision aimed at redressing the North-South imbalance by placating the betrayed members of its Southern bloc with the chairmanship.”
In a statement, Okechukwu, who is also Director General of Voice of Nigria (VON), added: “The comedy errors in the PDP caused by Dr. Iyorchia Ayu’s refusal to step aside as the party national chairman could make Atiku Nigeria’s equivalent of Raila Odinga.”
While remarking that PDP’s refusal to observe the power rotation arrangement between North and South is not in the nation’s best interest, Okechukwu said the mistake could remind voters that Atiku flouted the zoning convention.
He stated: “There is a crisis of confidence and mutual suspicion dogging the major opposition party, the PDP, where the national chairman, Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, received a vote of confidence from the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC).
“What Ayu succeeded in doing by retaining the imbalance between the North and South in the PDP and arrogantly refusing to step down from his party’s high horse chairmanship, is simply to wilfully coronate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as Nigeria’s 2023 version of Raila Odinga.”
He said Atiku and Ayu have presented PDP as party that extols nepotism and panders to “stomach infrastructure and political high way men, whose interest is only what they can scoop for themselves. PDP has manipulated itself out of contention for the 2023 general elections.”
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