The presidential aspiration of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar received
a boost last Saturday as stakeholders of the All Progressives Peoples Congress
(APC) from the North-East converged on Zaranda Hotel, Bauchi and unanimously
endorsed him to run on the platform of the party.
The stakeholders drawn from all the six states in the region resolved
that the North-East must produce the next presidential candidate of the APC and
appealed to other stakeholders in the party from other zones to support Atiku’s
emergence as the party’s candidate for the 2015 presidential election.
Speaking during the endorsement meeting, the Director General of
Atiku Support Group (ASG), Alhaji Abdulrazak Nadas, commended the party’s
stakeholders from the North-East for the confidence reposed in the former vice
president, saying the group was the first organisation to come out to ask Atiku
to run for president
“Atiku is an experienced politician, businessman and philantrophist who
knows Nigeria very well. He knows our problem, he fought against third term
otherwise we won’t be here today. Nigeria needs him. We need the support of all
stakeholders to actualise it,” he said.
A chieftain of the party, Abdulrahman Jimeta, said the gathering was
not just to endorse Atiku but also to decide on democracy and save the country
from collapse. He stressed that the North-East was the most backward, isolated
and most exploited of all the six regions in the country.
“It is on record that we fought for independence and we produced great
people like Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Ribadu, Kassim Ibrahim and many others,
yet today we are the most backward. The World Bank classified us as the poorest;
that is why we gathered here today to decide on our future,” he said.
According to him, nobody would save the people of the region from the
problem of insurgency, underdevelopment and poverty except one of theirs.
“We are going to support Abubakar Atiku, the Turakin Adamawa, to clinch
the APC ticket and we will take our commitment to the other zones as a matter
of urgency, not a choice, except if we want to continue to be exploited..”
Other leaders and stakeholders from Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe,
Taraba and Yobe said Atiku remained their choice because he was a dogged
fighter who could match the Peoples Democratic Party at the polls.
Chairman on the occasion, Alhaji Barau Ningi, who described Atiku as a
great man, political giant, business guru and administrator par excellence,
lamented that the country was dogged by many social ills, saying only Atiku
could salvage it.
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