By Abdul-Ganiyy Akanbi <\/p>\n
A former chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr Jackson Lekan Ojo, has said that opponents of ex-Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar are making a mistake by underrating him, declaring that Atiku would inherit the 12 million Northern block votes associated with late President Muhammadu Buhari in 2027.<\/p>\n
In an interview in Abuja, Ojo said while Southern votes would be scattered among about 10 presidential hopefuls, the Northern vote will remain consolidated behind the leading candidate from the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a nationalist. Don\u2019t forget Buhari\u2019s 12 million traditional block votes in the North. Who do you think will inherit it? Atiku will inherit it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Ojo argued that hardship under President Bola Tinubu has eroded support for him in the North. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Northern people have never suffered like this in the political history of Nigeria. With that level of suffering, you think they will mobilize to support Tinubu?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
He dismissed the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC vice presidential candidate, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso as a threat to Atiku in the North, saying the former Kano State governor has lost his structure.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has lost the governor of Kano, the senators, the House of Assembly. Kwankwaso has no serious political base today. It\u2019s just the Kwankwasiya Movement scattered everywhere,\u201d Ojo said, adding that Kwankwaso is only \u201cformidable in Kano and maybe a little fraction in Jigawa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Predicting fragmentation in the South, Ojo said: \u201cBola Tinubu lost Lagos. How many South West states did he win? Now there are about 10 presidential candidates from the South and the votes will be divided into 10 places.”<\/p>\n
He cited rising insecurity in the South West and questioned if Tinubu can win Oyo against Governor Seyi Makinde or Osun with Rauf Aregbesola as ADC National Secretary.<\/p>\n
The former chieftain warned of mass defections within the APC. \u201cThere is going to be a lot of betrayals, even among the rank and file of the APC. Tinubu is going to see a lot of betrayals from the Northern angle. I make bold to say that,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n
Ojo rejected zoning, calling it unconstitutional and ineffective. \u201cFederal character is not working. Zoning is just by mutual agreement. At this point I believe in \u2018contractocracy\u2019 \u2014 the best material,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He cited examples from Obasanjo, Yar\u2019Adua and the present administration to argue that zoning has failed to deliver good governance, jobs, or security.<\/p>\n
Backing Atiku, Ojo aligned with Obasanjo\u2019s position that Nigeria needs him to \u201cbring the change we are yearning for.\u201d<\/p>\n
He credited Atiku as Vice President and head of the National Economic Council with the telecoms revolution, debt relief, and bringing in technocrats like Nuhu Ribadu, Nasir El-Rufai, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Oby Ezekwesili and Chukwuma Soludo.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmong those contesting now, he is the only one with the experience and pedigree. It was his economic team that brought MTN, Glo, Airtel. Instead of borrowing, our debts were written off,\u201d Ojo said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Abdul-Ganiyy Akanbi A former chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Dr Jackson Lekan Ojo, has said that opponents of ex-Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar are making a mistake by underrating him, declaring that Atiku would inherit the 12 million Northern block votes associated with late President Muhammadu Buhari in 2027. In an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15257"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15258,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15257\/revisions\/15258"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}