The camp of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Monday cautioned opposition parties against zoning the 2027 presidential ticket exclusively to the South, warning that such a strategy could pave the way for President Bola Tinubu’s easy re-election.
In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja, Atiku’s media aide, Olusola Sanni, argued that while the ruling All Progressives Congress may retain its southern presidential configuration around Tinubu, it would be politically unwise for the opposition to adopt the same approach without considering electoral realities.
The statement stressed that politics should be guided by strategy, coalition-building, and electoral calculations rather than sentiment or selective moral arguments.
“The first and most obvious question is this: how does a Southern opposition candidate realistically unseat a sitting Southern president? Nigerian political history offers no precedent for such an outcome.
“No incumbent president has ever been defeated by an opposition challenger from the same geopolitical bloc. To insist otherwise is to enter the contest already defeated,” Sanni said.
He also challenged the moral justification being advanced for southern zoning, arguing that the South would have spent more years in power than the North by 2027.
“By 2027, the South would have held presidential power for approximately 18 years in the Fourth Republic, compared to about 10 years for the North. If the South retains power for another four years, that disparity widens even further.
“It therefore becomes difficult to understand the justice in an argument that seeks to deepen an already existing imbalance under the guise of equity,” Sanni added.
The Atiku camp further accused some political actors of hypocrisy over the zoning debate, particularly those who supported the emergence of former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 after the death of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
While acknowledging the South-East’s aspiration to produce a president, the statement warned against reducing the demand to mere political bargaining.
“It is intellectually dishonest for those who enthusiastically supported a Southern presidency under Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, despite the North’s legitimate expectation under the informal zoning arrangement, to now suddenly posture as custodians of rotational justice.
“Principles do not become sacred only when they align with personal ambition.
“The South-East deserves a sustainable and credible pathway to national leadership, not symbolic tokenism or bespoke arrangements tailored to satisfy one individual’s ambition,” it stated.
The former VP camp urged opposition parties to focus on building a broad national coalition capable of defeating the incumbent administration rather than pursuing what it described as emotional narratives.
“Defeating an incumbent president requires realism, not romanticism; strategy, not sentiment; honesty, not selective memory. The opposition must decide whether its goal is to make an emotional statement or to actually win power,” the statement added.
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