Former Information Commissioner in Edo state, Prince Kassim Afegbua, has again criticized former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar over the latter’s claim that the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, will go into extinction if it fails to get it right in 2023.
Afegbua, a vocal critic of the former Vice President, described the comment as self serving, even as he called on the leadership the party to zone the 2023 Presidential ticket to the South.
In a statement issued, Sunday, Afegbua said: “Talking about 2023, I read somewhere that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar said PDP would go into extinction in 2023 if they didn’t get it right. How wrong?. The PDP has come to stay as a viable political party that will endure the test of time. The fact is, once Alhaji Atiku is beaten at the party’s primaries, he will surely go into extinction and run away to his usual destination; Dubai.
“There is no sincerity of purpose. What you see is a culture of desperation and huge sense of self entitlement as if the party was built or created for him. Only last week, the party talked about setting up a zoning committee to look into the issue, the following day, Alhaji Atiku ambushed the party by purchasing the nomination form. Who does that? Where is the honesty and sincerity of purpose? Why wouldn’t he wait for the zoning committee to be composed, meet and come up with a decision? He has also set 23rd of March for his official declaration at the Conference Centre without waiting for any position of the party.
“I have cautioned the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, that it will be sacrilegious and morally reprehensible to continue to indulge Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and other Northern aspirants in the race on who emerges the Presidential candidate of the party for the 2023 election. I have repeatedly said that for the sake of justice, equity and fairness, the ticket should be ceded to the Southern part of the country.
“This is how to promote party cohesion, unity and oneness of purpose. It was in realization of that, that the Southern axis allowed their Northern brothers to take a shot at the Presidency alone and all alone in 2019. Now that it should be the turn of the South, you see the leadership of the party talking with its tongue in cheek.”