ATIKU’s ‘GREED’ RESPONSIBLE FOR PDP’s DEFEAT AT PEPC ~says VON DG
The Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), Osita Okechukwu says he fully understands the grief of the opposition parties over the judgement of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
Okechukwu Osita said this when he spoke with Journalists in Abuja on the aftermath of Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
The VON DG said although, the main opposition PDP had bright chances of bouncing back through the 2023 presidential election, the political greed of the party’s presidential candidate, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar denied the party the victory.
Okechukwu said that Atiku’s failure to rise to the golden opportunity and play as a statesman by throwing support for his erstwhile running mate Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate divided the opposition party.
“Atiku dealt PDP a huge blow from which it might be difficult to recover”.
He dismissed claims that the petitioners had maintained that President Bola Tinubu was not qualified to run and allegations of irregularities in the conduct of the election as well as the failure to electronically transmit results in real time were fatal to the respondents’ case.
“Those intricate webs could have been resolved, if Atiku had obeyed the zoning convention, supported Peter Obi or any other Southern presidential candidate, it could be simply an all southern bout.
“The Wike Masquerade couldn’t have emerged. That would have meant that the bulk of votes he garnered could have been credited to PDP.
“Atiku divided PDP’s votes irreparably, all the votes Labour Party garnered were from the party’s stronghold, minus voted warehoused by the former Vice President, who naively forgot that northern voters are one of the most sophisticated in the country but believed that northern electorates would behave like children in a dormitory waiting for directives on how to vote,” he said.
Okechukwu said that Tinubu deserved accolades for rescuing the zoning convention, which guarantees equity, and natural justice between the north and south.