Atiku kicks against Southern Presidency, warns opposition against self-defeatist politics
Atiku Abubakar Challenges Southern Zoning for 2027 Presidential Race
By Omeiza Ajayi
ABUJA—Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s camp issued a statement on Monday, cautioning political opponents that pushing for the zoning of the 2027 presidential ticket to the South may lead to “self-defeat.”
In remarks delivered by his media aide, Olusola Sanni, the Atiku camp deemed the proposal for a southern opposition candidate “intellectually dishonest,” citing a lack of historical precedent for an opposition figure from the same geopolitical region as the sitting president to successfully challenge that president.
“The first question to consider is: how can a Southern opposition candidate realistically unseat a sitting Southern president?” the statement read. It emphasized that no incumbent president in Nigeria has been defeated by an opposition candidate from the same region.
While acknowledging that the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) might maintain its southern presidential configuration under incumbent President Bola Tinubu, the Atiku camp argued that opposition figures should not pursue similar strategies without a realistic assessment of the political landscape.
“Defeating an incumbent requires a grounded strategy, not idealism; it demands an honest evaluation, not selective memories,” the statement warned, urging the opposition to decide whether its aim is to make a political statement or to win elections.
Responding to arguments for equity in southern zoning, the Atiku camp was dismissive, pointing out that by 2027, the South would have held the presidency for approximately 18 years during the Fourth Republic, compared to about 10 years for the North. They contended that granting another four years to the South would exacerbate the existing imbalance rather than rectify it.
“It’s difficult to understand the fairness in an argument that seeks to deepen an existing imbalance under the guise of equity,” the statement asserted.
The camp also criticized what it described as selective memory among political actors who, after the death of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua in 2011, supported Southern candidate Goodluck Jonathan despite Northern expectations under an informal rotational arrangement. They accused these actors of now presenting zoning as a non-negotiable principle.
“It is intellectually dishonest for those who backed a Southern presidency in 2011 to now claim to be champions of rotational justice,” the statement noted, asserting that principles should not only become sacred when they align with personal ambitions.
While the Atiku camp recognized the Southeast’s aspiration to produce a president as valid, it differentiated between that aspiration and what it termed “transactional political bargaining” or “symbolic tokenism” intended to serve individual ambitions.
“The Southeast deserves a credible and sustainable path to national leadership, not mere symbolic gestures,” the statement emphasized.
The camp urged the opposition to focus on forming a viable national coalition capable of defeating Tinubu in upcoming elections, cautioning that debates driven by sentiment regarding zoning could unintentionally bolster the incumbent’s chances for re-election.
Atiku Abubakar, a prominent northern Muslim politician from Adamawa State, has run for the presidency multiple times and remains a significant figure in the opposition landscape as the 2027 electoral cycle approaches.
