Yekini Nabena, a former All Progressives Congress (APC) deputy national publicity secretary, has lambasted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for criticizing the ruling party’s choice to run a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
According to Naija News, Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, named Senator Kashim Shettima as his running mate.
Shettima’s selection as running partner has been widely criticized because it creates a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a secular state.
The PDP, on the other hand, abandoned its zoning plan to make their ticket available to all of Nigeria, where former Vice President Atiku Abubakar accepted it.
Tuesday’s statement from Nabena said that the PDP had forfeited its moral authority to attack Tinubu over his selection of Shettima.
He claimed that while being aware that the incumbent president is also from the north, the PDP was still trying to divert Nigerians’ attention with its prior choice to zone its presidential ticket to a northerner.
Nabena emphasized that heaven did not descend when Nigeria previously had a Buhari-Idiagbon Muslim-Muslim ticket and a Gowon-Adewale Christian-Christian one.
“I recall that there was no outcry from the opposition because the ticket stood no chance of winning,” he recalled of the 2011 election in which the Action Congress of Nigeria ran two Muslims, Nuhu Ribadu and Fola Adeola.
“In my opinion, Nigerians ought to be more concerned with the PDP’s rationale for abandoning the traditional power-rotation system between the North and the South in favor of the Muslim-Muslim ticket.
How justifiable is it that we are pushing for equality and fairness in the power-sharing arrangements between Christians and Muslims but entirely neglecting and alienating our African Traditional Worshippers?
“Nigeria should be more concerned about the zoning arrangement that the PDP just killed for their own self-interest and the desperation of their presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, because for Atiku, it is the last chance that would only be a chance for him after 2023.”
