Atiku counsels Buhari, APC on how to campaign
The Northern Youths Leaders Forum (NYLF) has called on the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to reconsider his choice of Peter Obi as running mate, if he hopes to enjoy the total support of the north and win the 2019 general elections.
The group, which says it serves as the umbrella body for 46 northern youth organisations, with over six million members, equally threatened to mobilize massively against the PDP if Abubakar sticks with Obi as his deputy.
National chairman of the northern group Elliot Afiyo made this known in Abeokuta on Tuesday while speaking with the media.
Afiyo, saying that the body had been instrumental to the electoral victories of successive presidents since 1999, including the incumbent president, Muhammadu Buhari, stated that NYLF played a critical role in reconciling former president Olusegun Obasanjo with Atiku, who was his vice president.
The group, he added, had with Obasanjo on Monday night to make its position known on the matter.
He explained that, apart from the ruckus Obi’s choice has caused in the South East, which according to him is largely responsible for the impending defection of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu from the PDP, Obi is viewed as anti-North and a major sponsor of Igbo separatist group Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) by northerners
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has counseled President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to campaign on issues and not descend to insults and name calling in the build up to the 2019 general elections.
Atiku, who is the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 presidential election, said if the campaigns are not conducted with care, it may turn around to divide and hurt the country.
The former Vice President said this in a statement by the Spokesman of his campaign organisation on Tuesday.
The statement reads: “We need to restate as directed by His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, Presidential candidate of PDP that the 2019 election should be issue based, devoid of slandering and name calling.
“We hold the view that unguarded narrative hurts the country and further divides us as a people.
“Some of the consequences of previous mismanaged campaign efforts are perhaps the reason why there is little or no internal cohesion with its attendant security challenges.
“Elections comes every four years in our country and if great effort is not taken, we could hurt the country and its people needlessly and invariably our democracy.
“We have to sign up to this ideals, we can campaign without recourse to hate speech, libels, lies, undue criminalization of people and each other.
“On our part, we have signed up to running an issue-based campaign and if it is not too hard for the Muhammadu Buhari administration and the APC to understand, we call on you to do the same.
“There is greater value in doing so. Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth and we owe it to ourselves and the black race to be above board.”
It would be recalled that Atiku had counseled his supporters in a tweet recently to counter insults and scandal mongering from APC supporters with facts and not descend into the gutter with them.
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