July 31, (THEWILL) – If there is one issue that has dominated the political space in the last couple of weeks, it is the decision of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to field a Muslim presidential candidate and a Muslim vice presidential candidate in the presidential election coming up early in 2023.
The controversy over the single-faith presidential ticket started when Tinubu, who is a southern Muslim, chose a northern Muslim, Kashim Shettima, as his running mate.
Many Nigerians, including Christian leaders across the country, have opposed the ruling party’s choice of presenting two Muslims as its presidential and vice presidential candidates.
Penultimate week, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, stirred the Hornet’s nest when he said, during g a television interview, that he rejected Tinubu as his running mate in 2007 to avoid a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
Atiku said Tinubu wanted to be his running mate in the 2007 presidential election, but he rejected the idea because he “didn’t believe it was right to have a Muslim-Muslim ticket.”
He also said Tinubu wanted to be running mate to President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, but he and others opposed him because he and Buhari were of the same religion.
“The Muslim-Muslim ticket has always been my fundamental disagreement. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country and there should be a religious balance in our leadership.
“He (Tinubu) insisted on running with me and I didn’t believe it was right to have a Muslim-Muslim ticket. That was the point of my fundamental departure from him.”
Shortly after the interview, Tinubu denied that he sought to be Atiku’s vice presidential candidate in 2007, saying that Atiku offered him the ticket and he rejected it.
Tinubu went on to say that Atiku had lost his moral compass. From that point, an altercation ensued. Both men, through their aides, engaged in a verbal ‘war, ‘with Tinubu saying that Atiku had for the of “love of his own ambition” had “eclipsed his relationship with the truth and an honest account of the past.”
He said Atiku, in his desperate attempt to win the election by stoking religious bias, had reduced himself to uttering baseless lies during his exclusive interview with Arise TV.
Tinubu said, “We are saddened to see such a man become unhinged from the truth. So obsessed is he with his quest for office, Atiku is willing to render any form of untruth if he thinks it might gain him a single vote. Atiku may want to be president. However, all he has shown is that he is pathological.”
“Whatever moral compass he had has been lost. During a 22 July television interview, Atiku assaulted historic truth by lying that he did not name Tinubu as his running mate in 2007 on the Action Congress ticket because Atiku did not want a Muslim as his running mate.”
“Atiku has no business raising the issue of a Muslim-Muslim ticket except as a hypocrite. Perhaps he believes people have forgotten his antics during the 1993 election. After he woefully lost his bid to be the presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, what did he do? He canvassed and lobbied harder than anyone to become the running mate to late Chief MKO Abiola. When it benefitted him personally, Atiku did not see anything wrong with a Muslim-Muslim ticket. He saw everything right in such a ticket as long as he was on it.
“Now, Atiku criticises my selection as running mate, based on religion. He does so because he cannot criticise it on other grounds. If Atiku were to have one of his rare moments of honesty, he would admit that the person I selected as my running mate is more qualified for the position than the man who joined him. And this conclusion has nothing to do with religious faith. It has everything to do with competence, experience, ability and vision.”
Following this was also a release from the Tinubu Campaign Organisation through its Director, Media and Communication, Bayo Onanuga, which faulted some of Atiku’s claim in the interview on Arise TV.
Onanuga in the release said, “We have watched Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s interview on Arise Television and were extremely shocked by the many lies and ignorance displayed by the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate.
“In the interview, Alhaji Atiku exposed himself as a man who is not prepared for the job he is applying for and a man who cannot be entrusted with our commonwealth. He was flippant in his response to important questions about his record of service and how he made money while serving in Customs. He muddled up facts and exhibited a befuddling absence of mind”.
He said the takeaways from the interview include the fact that the PDP candidate is a law breaker: “It was most shocking Atiku admitted that he cheated the system for decades and engaged in gross misconduct as a government worker. As a customs officer at the Idi-Iroko border, Atiku revealed that he ran a commercial taxi service, claiming, “There is no law stopping public officers from doing business in Nigeria.”
Onanuga also alleged that Atiku had poor knowledge of the key sectors of the economy: “Atiku Abubakar also exhibited poor knowledge of history when he claimed that Abraham Lincoln, one of America’s famous leaders, contested the presidency five or six times before he eventually won.
“This is a beer parlour tale that has been recycled over time. Lincoln contested the U.S. presidency twice. He ran in 1860 and 1864 and won both, before he was assassinated on 15 April, 1865.
“The false story about Lincoln’s failed presidential bids sprang from his previous failed state and national elections, from his state of Illinois. They were not the same as America’s presidential election.
“According to historians, Lincoln lost his first election in 1832 for the Illinois State legislature. In 1834, he ran again and won.
“In 1843 he ran for Congress, but lost. Three years after in 1846, Lincoln ran for Congress again. This time, he won and went to Washington. From established history, in 1848, Lincoln ran for re-election to Congress and lost. In 1854, he ran for Senate of the United States. He lost. Lincoln also made another failed bid for the U.S. Senate from Illinois in 1858. He lost to Democrat Steven Douglas.
“Our conclusion is that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is ill-prepared to be President of Nigeria, if he could bungle a television interview that was planned well ahead of the day.”
Atiku through his media aide, Paul Ibe, as if exposing the claim that Tinubu is not physically and mentally fit, challenged Tinubu to take the hot seat for an hour.
He said, “In any case, if Bola Tinubu can forget the name of his own political party, why will he not also forget what transpired in 2007 and 2015? We do sympathise with him.
“The fact remains that in a fragile and ethnically diverse nation, such as ours, religious and ethnic balance must be observed at the highest levels and from there flow downwards.
“We were rather amused to read the knee-jerk response from the Tinubu Campaign Organisation to the wave making interview granted by Waziri Atiku Abubakar to Arise TV on Thursday, July 21, 2022. Amusement because we expected this. Mr Tinubu has not sat down to do any prolonged interview for obvious reasons. Nigerians have seen him talk in public and can themselves gauge the reason why he is mortified to do so.”
One thing that political analysts and watchers of political developments had found disturbing is the fact that the altercation between the two frontline presidential candidates is on trivial issues, not what affects the generality of the people of Nigeria.
None of the two candidates, for instance, have spoken on what they are going to do for Nigerians, if eventually they win the election and how they are going to do it. Rather, they are arguing on what they had done in the past, which has no benefit to any Nigerian.
We feel they should, instead of ‘fighting over trivial issues’, tell Nigerians their manifestoes and how they plan to ameliorate the harsh conditions under which Nigerians are living, if elected in 2023.
Speaking with THEWILL, a member of Campaign for Democracy in Ogun State, Comrade Sola Olawale, said the war of words between Atiku and Tinubu showed that none of them have any good programme to offer Nigerians.
“They are calling each other names and each camp is saying the other is not fit to rule. That is shameful. Why fight on personal issues rather than the problems facing the country. Nigerians would have appreciated it, if the two were quarrelling on the best way to fix the economy or resolve the country’s security problems. It is unfortunate that the two leading candidates are not talking on issues as they affect the country”
Also speaking with THEWILL, Paul James, a public affairs commentator based in Abuja, said the duo were just wasting their energy on frivolous issues.
“But I think Atiku is right on the issue of Muslim- Muslim ticket. It is not a good development in a pluralistic country like Nigeria. We need to be religiously sensitive. We need to ensure religious balance and the APC as a party and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, have taken a gamble and we shall see how it will play out”.
Speaking on the altercation between Atiku and Tinubu, Mrs Beatrice Uche said it was a normal thing in politics.
“It shows how competitive the race is going to be. I think it is a good development that we have two candidates who can match each other in so many ways. The umpire is yet to blow the whistle for the campaign, but they have started dragging themselves on the ground. It is good, let them hit the ground running,“ she said.
Also, Fola Ojo said, “You can see that both Tinubu and Atiku are not good enough for us in 2023. Please vote for Obi and the Labour Party in the next election. You can see, Tinubu said Atiku is a pathological liar and Atiku said Tinubu cannot stand for an hour interview, which means he is not mentally and physically fit to be Nigeria’s president. Peter Obi is not a liar and he is physically and mentally fit to run the affairs of the country. Let us forget Tinubu and Atiku, they are birds of the same feather.”
Speaking on the face-off between Atiku and Tinubu, a member of a pro- Atiku Abubakar Group, Dr Sola Babafemi Akinbade, said, “Tinubu has a huge and unfavourable perception index arising from a dubious mystery surrounding vital aspects of his life. Some netizens have argued that supporting Tinubu is the most difficult task to undertake. You will have to defend his age. You will have to defend his health because he claims to be well whereas there is evidence of dementia. You will also have to defend his educational certificates as he claims not to have attended primary and secondary schools and his degree certificate was carted away by the military.
“When he called Atiku a desperate liar who should never be trusted, given this avalanche of falsifications about his entire life, who is the desperate liar?”
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
