***says, all Nigeria needs is an organized opposition coalition to defeat the APC
Coalition for United Political Parties has dissociated itself from a proposition by one of the aides to former vice president Atiku Abubarker where he projected his principal to lead the opposition political parties in Nigeria.
A statement by National Secretary of the coalition High Chief Peter Ameh indicated that a newspaper publication on January 4, 2024 credited to one of the firmer Vice President’s aide had proposed and projected former Vice President Atiku Abubakar Atiku to lead opposition in 2027
The statement reads,
“We in CUPP hereby wish to disassociate ourselves from that proposition because of the reasons mentioned hereunder.
“CUPP had worked with Atiku in the past only to realise later that we worked for a candidate who cared for himself, his ambition, and his own ambition only without giving a hoot for other coalition partners. It is also in the public sphere that former Vice President Atiku has severally professed his aversion for multi-party democracy. He is a fan of either one or two party systems only.
“Recall that in the run-up to 2019 general elections, more than thirty-five political parties went into a coalition which led to the formation of CUPP as it is today with PDP and former Vice President Atiku as its consensus presidential candidate.
“CUPP worked tirelessly for the former Vice President Atiku to become the president of Nigeria, and lost at the polls, he turned his back on his coalition partners, and practically threw the coalition parties under the bus and ran away to Dubai only to surface towards the 2023 general election.
“We remember sending a delegation of the coalition to him parties to seek his opinion on the way forward for the opposition parties, only to be told by him that he did not believe and had never believed in multi-party democracy which was the bedrock of constitutional democracy and the reason for the existence of the parties that went into that coalition with him.
“How would a man who is so enamoured with a one party system and had severally professed his aversion for multi-party democracy lead and be nominated to be in the forefront of such struggle.
“CUPP sees this as trying to fly a wingless kite, which can never be airborne. He is trying to rally the opposition parties to take upon themselves a fight (install him as the president), which he has tried severally and failed.
“CUPP hereby urges the former Vice President Atiku to leave the stage now that the ovation is high.
“He has done his beat as a consumate politician, he has contested severally for the office of the president without victory, the time is now ripe for him to quit the stage for the younger elements and start portraying himself as a statesman that he truly is.”