Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has stated that during his presidential campaign in 2007, an All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Bola Tinubu, volunteered to be his running mate, but he declined.
Tinubu wanted to be Atiku’s vice president in the year he lost his first presidential run, but he (Atiku) said no and chose a different man, according to Atiku, who was VP to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 to 2007.
He revealed this to members of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT) at a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday, where he argued for his zoning stance ahead of the 2023 presidential race.
“The southeast said they have not been given a chance, I protested against the violation of the zoning policy in 2007, and together with my friend Bola (Tinubu) we set up Action Congress (AC).
“We went to Lagos, he gave me [a] ticket but said that the condition of handing me the ticket was that I should make him vice president, I said no; I’m not going to make you Vice President; instead, I nominated Senator Ben Obi,” Atiku narrated.
The PDP chieftain used the anecdote to emphasize that he was not working against the possible zoning of the party’s presidential ticket to the South.
“In the party, we invented and formulated this zoning policy simply because we wanted every part of this country to have a sense of belonging and I personally have paid my dues on the issue of zoning.
“Many of you were members of our government when all the PDP governors came in 2003 and said I should run and I said no. We have agreed that power should remain in the South-West, Why should I?
“Some of those governors that supported me, some of them went to jail, some of them were kicked out of their offices; we made sure that we kept the policy. Therefore, you cannot come and try to imply that the PDP has not been following the zoning policy.
“The many years of PDP government eight years and six years all of them were from the South. So, we should not be stampeded by the opposition party. They have a moral obligation which is inescapable,” Atiku stated.
He further asserted that there is absolutely no reason why people from the southern region of the country should say that there is a deliberate attempt to exclude them in political participation or power-sharing.
“I thought I should disabuse your mind and of course, as an enlightened political class, I don’t think there’s any deliberate policy to exclude anybody in this country,” Atiku assured the party faithful.