Uduegbunam ChukwujamaTinubu Vs Atiku: Like a big wrestling or boxing duel, two of the three major candidates in the 2023 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), and Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), are squaring up for dirty fight that exposes each other’s political underbelly.
The Tinubu Vs Atiku fight dominated the political campaign environment at the weekend as both released verbal salvos to undermine themselves. Both candidates are frantically hitting below the belt, jettisoning the real issues for the 2023 presidential campaigns, as equally distracted Nigerians look on.
Dr Jonathan Emenike Ogbuabor, an economic analyst at Nigeria’s first autonomous university, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), believes that the Tinubu vs Atiku war is a huge disservice to the current political discourse as Nigeria moves closer to a critical election in 2023. He told Prime Business Africa (PBA) that both candidates and others should rather ”face the media in an issue-based political debate than continue to engage in backyard name calling.”
Dr Obuabor hinted that he does not naturally pay serious attention to what Nigeria’s professional politicians say but explained that he was taking the unfolding Tinubu vs Atiku imbroglio as a carefully choreographed effort to distract the electorate away from the main issues in the 2023 presidential race. ”As academics, we owe the society the duty of pointing out how things can be done better,” the UNN Economics lecturer told PBA.
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Tinubu on Sunday responded to Atiku’s disparaging remarks which described his (Tinubu’s) ambition to president as an embarrassment to the Africans and the entire black race. According to Tinubu, Atiku belongs to a dying breed of politicians that resort to ethnic and religious sentiments in their quest for power.
Recall that the Tinubu vs Atiku campaign war had started at Atiku’s meeting with Arewa leaders in Kaduna on Saturday where he said the North would need a Nigerian politician from the North to be president and would not need a Yoruba or an Igbo to be president. He went on to describe himself as a politician from the North with a Pan Nigerian orientation.
The Atiku’s appeal in Kaduna triggered anger across the country’s South and in the social media space. Critics argue that such a disposition is not befitting of someone hoping to govern Nigeria in contemporary political setting. The PDP candidate’s position and the criticism that trailed it are viewed against the backdrop of the fact that the incumbent President Muhhamadu Buhari of the APC is from the Fulani North.
”Such tomfoolery is rarely not seen from the worst amongst us,” Chief Fani-Kayode who heads the new media at the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), said in the Tinubu vs Atiku exchange on Sunday.
”This is especially so, given the fact that by next year, we would have had eight years of Northern Fulani rule and now this man (Atiku) says we must have another eight years of it because that is what is ‘best for the North.’
”We will not allow Atiku to do to us what he did to Wike. We will not be cheated or denied. It is time for power to shift to the South and an overwhelming number of people in the North and certainly all Northers in the APC believe that. They recognise the fact that if we want our nation to continue to enjoy peace and remain united into the distant future, we must be fair in our dealings with one another.
” Atiku is a dying breed who still sees things from a regional, ethnic and religious prism. Nigeria has moved on from that and she deserves better. Our nation will not accept an ethnic bigot and tribal champion as their president.”
Meanwhile before the Tinubu vs Atiku underbelly fight began on Sunday, the PDP candidate was anchoring his campaign on the fact that he represents a unifying factor for all Nigerians irrespective of ethnicity and religion.
He had, earlier in the day, ‘bombed’ Tinubu with criticisms, saying the APC candidate could not speak for five minutes without some embarrassing gaffes. According to Atiku, Tinubu would need a prepared script to speak that long.
He made particular reference to Tinubu’s statement that Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State could ”turn a rotten situation into a bad one”, an expression Atiku considers a salient proof that Tinubu could not engage an audience for five minutes.
”It is regrettable to say the least that the All Progressives Congress (APC) would decide to cause a show of shame by a disingenuous attempt to turn fact on its headabout what a presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar said during a pubic engagement at the Arewa House on Saturday, Atiku’s team said.
”For the benefit of the innocent public who might be hoodwinked by the usual behaviour of APC in telling a big lie, what transpired was a direct question to Atiku to address the Northern audience on why he should be voted by the Northern electorate. In answering this question, Atiku started with a joke by addressing the questioner as ‘Mr Northerner’ which is a veiled criticism of why he limited his question to the northern audience in the first place.”
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