The Spokesman for the Atiku/ Okowa presidential campaign council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Senator Dino Melaye has told Nigerians that they cannot afford to gamble or make wrong choice in electing a president come 2023 election.
Newsonline reports that Dine Melaye said the choice before Nigerians is Atiku Abubakar who is a pan- Nigerian politician, than all other candidates put together.
Melaye, a former senator that represented Kogi West Senatorial District, stated this on Monday in Kaduna at the flag-off of the PDP presidential rally ahead of the 2023 election.
The statement reads partly: “As a consummate political strategist, an engaging listener, a disarming deployer of a charm offensive and a beacon of hope, Atiku, who bears the flag of PDP, has commenced his campaign, moving round and dispensing the assurance that the years of the locusts are over.
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“As a politician who is at home everywhere in Nigeria, Atiku demonstrated his universal home connection by flagging off his Presidential campaign in Uyo on October 10, 2022.
“Nigeria can not afford to gamble this time; by making a wrong choice.”
The former Kogi West senator made the speech after Atiku was cut on record speaking that the Norths need a presidential candidate from the North and not a Yoruba or an Igbo candidate.
Atiku said, “I know the whole of this country. I have built bridges across this country. I think what the average northerner needs is somebody who is from the north, who also understands the other parts of Nigeria, and who has been able to build bridges across the rest of the country.
“This is what the northerner needs. He (the northerner) doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate or an Igbo candidate. This is what the northerner needs. I stand before you as a pan-Nigerian of northern origin”.
The statement which generated condemnation among Nigerians and other political parties was seen as fanning ethnic embers by the PDP presidential candidate.
The governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, a PDP governor, who condemned the ethnic statement called on the PDP leadership to tender an apology to Nigerians from the South.
Wike argued that Atiku who claims to be a unifier ought not to make ethnic bigot statement at the Arewa House in Kaduna on Friday, 15th October 2022.
