The All Progressives Congress (APC) says the crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should draw the attention of Nigerians more the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket.
The ruling party accused the opposition of using the same faith ticket controversy to distract Nigerians from its internal crisis.
Felix Morka, national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), made this known in an interview with Channels Television on Friday.
In July, Bola Tinubu, the APC presidential candidate, picked Kashim Shettima, former governor of Borno, who is also a Muslim, as his running mate for the 2023 presidential election.
The development was met with vehement opposition from various quarters, including the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
On the other hand, Atiku Abubakar, a northerner, is the PDP presidential candidate – a situation that has angered some stakeholders who argued that the party should have zoned its ticket to the south in the line with power rotation and in the spirit of fairness and equity.
The APC spokesperson said “attention” must be given to how the PDP shunned power rotation in the choice of its presidential candidate.
Morka said the APC chose a southerner as its presidential candidate to “balance up the need for peace and unity” in the country.
“I think we all need to pay a little attention to what is going on in the opposition side. That party – PDP – is crippled completely by their own internal crisis. That is where the attention should be,” he said.
“They are the one who has shortchanged our idea of rotation and power balancing between the north and the south. They took their presidential candidate from the north. We took it to the south because our party believes in fairness.
“We have a president who is from the north of the country and we thought for good reasons – to balance up the need for peace, unity and inclusiveness in this country that we cede our presidency to the south.
“We have done that but the PDP did the exact opposite to go north. Those who do not want to actually face the truth would rather discuss whether is about Muslim-Muslim ticket or other things to distract from the fundamental breach of their own constitution.
“They are the only party that entrenched the principle of rotation in their constitution but in flagrant breach of that principle, they pushed the presidency to the north. It is up to Nigerians to decide whether the need for unity is sufficient to actually reject the call by that party to be voted into office come next year.”
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