Atiku is cosmopolitan person, I don’t believe he will fail like Buhari says Alex Kadiri

***Advocates for rotational Presidency to be part of electoral law so that Ibo man can be President 

Following the emergence of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Saturday as the Presidential flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  Senator Alex Usman Kadiri, an APC stalwart, who represented Kogi East from 1999 to 2003 has said his prediction of another Fulani President in 2023 is gradually coming to pass.

The elder statesman had predicted that based on the capacity to garner votes, Atiku is the only politician in PDP today that is assured of at least 8million to 12 million votes even if he does not go out for campaign.

He said every political party aspires to win the Presidency hence they cannot just give their ticket to anybody who will go and mess it up. 

“About a month ago, I told you we are going to have another Fulani President After Buhari whether we like it or not and my prediction is coming slowly to reality assuredly. 

“Atiku as a man has a broader mind than Buhari, he is a cosmopolitan person, his first wife is Yoruba, most of his good friends are Ibos or Yorubas, he even has another wife who is Ibo. He has businesses in Port Harcourt, Lagos and Yola. He is a well travelled person, he is an enlightened person. I think if we must tell ourselves the truth he will make a better President than Buhari.

“Buhari is from my Party, I am APC but I must criticise where I think it is right for me to criticise because I am an 80 years old man, I can’t pretend. As far as I am concerned Buhari has been a failed President I don’t believe that Atiku would fail like Buhari even though he is also a Fulani man

On the clamour for Ibo Presidency he said,

“My wife is Ibo, I have nothing against the Ibos, more Ibos come to my house to argue with me politically than even my Igala People. I have told them the story. Today, Tomorrow no party that wants to win the Presidency of Nigeria will want to give their ticket to an Ibo man because there is no Ibo man who can bring 10 million votes, in fact those in the ring now none of them can bring 2million votes to a party. 

“Look at what happened in the PDP presidential primary there were 95 Ibo delegates, the Ibo man who scored votes got 14 votes so even among the 95 delegates. Even the Ibos didn’t believe in him. That is what they did to Peter Obi.

According to him, The only way an Ibo man can become President is not through these high sounding English and insults they pour on people, they should prevail on their representatives in the national Assembly to lobby their colleagues to put rotational presidency in the electoral law if putting it in the constitution would be cumbersome. 

“They should insert in the electoral law that the Presidency of Nigeria must rotate from zone to zone, somebody from North East must be President let it move to South West, to South East, South South and to the North Central. 

“I am saying this because that is the only way I can see an Ibo man becoming President of Nigeria. 

“Yet they are full of insults, they believe they are more educated. Every part of the country now has educated people. Yes they are better in business but governance is not business they way they are looking at it. 

So if there is provision in the electoral law that says the Presidency must rotate from zone to zone, let each zone have five year tenure, they can even start from the South East after these series of election then an Ibo man will become President of Nigeria but let me tell you, the day we zone that to the south East they will kill themselves. 

“How can Ohaneze Ndigbo say that no Ibo man must accept the Vice Presidency of Nigeria? Whether they accept or not the Presidential candidate must pick someone from anywhere he likes and he can still win the election.

“Look at the point I am making, the same Ohaneze threatening Atiku that he will not get any vote from the South East. They commit themselves into things they know they can ot enforce. 

“How can somebody sit in Enugu or Aba and say that they Ohaneze will ask all Ibos above the age of 18 not to vote for a particular person, that is being Naive. 

“Don’t they know that if an Ibo man becomes a candidate of any party tomorrow the Hausa Fulani can also decide that they would not vote for the Ibo man. It is not possible. 

“I am saying they should amend the electoral law or the constitution which ever is easy so that the Presidency can rotate from zone to zone if not as it is today, parties are looking for those who can win elections for them. 

“They are looking at somebody who can have residual votes to give them. If they don’t do what I am suggesting then nobody from North Central can ever aspire to be President of Nigeria because the Hausa Fulani will not vote for him, even the Ibos who are making all these noise will not vote for him, the Yorubas will not vote for him. 

“Our people can only get to the Presidency via a coup and coups are no longer fashionable if not nobody from North Central can become President based on the constitution or the current electoral law. So we are blocked. 

“Now the south South can align with the Hausa Fulani and one of them can emerge. Goodluck Jonathan became President because he aligned with the late Yaradua. 

“After five years when people forgot about Yaradua what became his fate?

So I will advocate that the electoral law should be amended through an act of the national Assembly to create room for the zoning of the Presidency from one zone to the other, turn by turn and in the process we should exclude the NorthWest and the South West from being number one or two, we can start from South East followed by North Central and them North East, South South before we go back to South West and the North West. We can not continue like this. 

“Ibos can never be President of Nigeria by hauling insults at people. They cannot threaten anybody, all these their empty threats I tell them I will be 80years next month, you cannot threaten me to vote for you. You have to convince me that you can be President of Nigeria. 

On the Biafra issue he said the Biafra Ojukwu fought for included today’s Rivers State, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Rivers and Delta States. “You cannot go to Portharcourt today and talk to the Rivers man that he is going to be part of Biafra, you cannot do the same in Bayelsa, you can go to Akwa Ibom or Cross River and make claims on television and in Abuja here that you are fighting for Biafra. 

“If you are fighting for the South East to Become a Country, then name the States that are going to be part of this Biafra. Not the old Biafra that Ojukwu had in mind. Those days are gone, those States are gone.