LP spokesperson takes on Nnamani over call for Yoruba-Igbo alliance

Senator Chimaroke Nnamani’s admonition that Ndigbo should reflect on the reality of an Ahmed Bola Tinubu Presidency, was not based on equity, natural justice, fairness and unity of Nigeria, the spokesman of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Organisation, Dr Tanko Yunusa has said

Tanko in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday said millions of youths and elder statesmen such as Afenifere leader, Pa Ayo Adebanjo who are supporting the LP presidential candidate, Peter Obi, were not doing so, based on his character alone, but in the collective interest of the country, fairness, equity, justice and inclusion.
Senator Nnamani who is of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was earlier listed as a member of the campaign council of Tinubu/Shettima campaign has not hidden his support for The APC presidential candidate.
He described the statement by Nnamani that Obi will lose the presidential election as borne out of either “bad judgment” or “wishful thinking” or both.
He said, “Distinguished Senator Chimaroke Nnamani, should first reflect on the reality of millions of Yorubas, who are supporting Obi based on the collective interest of our dear country, equity, justice and inclusion.
“One doesn’t think that millions of Yorubas who both openly and silently are supporting Obi are wrong?”

“In the last count, prominent among whom are elder statesman, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo revered international statesman and former president of Nigeria. They all cannot be wrong.”

Speaking further Tanko said Chimaroke should reflect on Pa Adebanjo’s uncommon pronouncement that,
‘The South-West, as I have pointed out, has produced a president and currently sits as VP, the South-South has spent a total of six years in the Presidency, but the Igbo people of the South-East have never tasted democratic presidency in Nigeria, and now that the power is due back in the South, equity demands that it be ceded to the Igbo’. Not in any way playing an ethnic card but natural justice demand so.

“We cannot continue to demand for ethnic marginalisation and still demanding for everyone to remain in Nigeria, while we at the same time continue to brutally marginalise and excluded them from the power dynamics.”

According to him, most of them from the north and youths nationwide, who are supporting Obi, because of his character, share the same premise of equity, natural justice and sense of belonging with Pa Adebanjo and other patriots across the length and breadth of the country.

On the other admonition by the Senator that there should be an Igbo-Yoruba Alliance, which he said it was not late for the Igbo to reflect on and carefully x-ray the looming reality of a President Bola Tinubu, Tanko said he agreed hundred percent that there should be a Yoruba-Igbo, Hausa and indeed the entire Nigeria alliance
However he said it should be based on equity, justice and fairness which Pa Adebanjo and other Yorubas patriots are championing

Concerning the statement by Nnamani that the two political parties with emotional capture of his people will lose the presidential election; Tanko dismissed the statement as hallucination, saying Obi’s spread and penetration in the north will surprise people like Chimaroke.

“Hoping that Sen Chimaroke is not among those who are still perplexed by Obi’s meteoric acceptability across Nigeria?
Or has the Senator asked why prominent Yoruba political allies of Tinubu like Fashola, Mamora and even Fayemi who is ex-governor are today neither members of APC presidential candidate’s think tank nor seen around him?”