Nigeria: Northern Leader Warns Atiku Against Dropping Okowa As Running-Mate

Northern leader, Alhaji Musa Saidu has warned the presidential standard bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku not to succumb to pressure to drop his running mate, governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta state.

Alhaji Saidu who is the Coordinator Arewa Initiative for Peaceful Coexistence in southern Nigeria and Leader of Arewa in the South said if Atiku dare drop Okowa , northerners would vote massively against him.

He said governor Okowa had carried on his political activities in the country without hurling insults at the north , adding that Okowa had shown that he is a grassroots politician with so much political maturity.

” Presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku should not drop governor Ifeanyi Okowa under any threat Okowa is a very cultured man. He has never insulted the north . He has never called the north beggars. Those talking against governor Okowa as running mate lack electoral values, many of them are cash and carry politicians. “

Continuing, he called on some Igbo politicians speaking from Abuja to go back to the east to test their popularity with the Indigenous People of Biafra , IPOB.

” Some Igbo leaders are in Abuja making all kind of unpalatable political statements. They should first go back home to test their popularity with IPOB to see if they enjoy acceptance among their people. Many of them are political traders. We saw how they voted against their own at presidential primaries of All Progressives Congress, APC.and the PDP This is why they will never go home because they know their people already know them as betrayals. We see unknown gunmen beheading politicians in the east and dropping their heads by the road side. Let these ones calling themselves leaders go home first before Nigerians can take them serious. Yoruba politicians are talking from their base , Lagos, Ibadan and other Yoruba areas , northern politicians are talking from Kaduna and other northern states but these Igbo politicians are in Abuja talking. Go home to test your popularity with IPOB”, he said.

Alhaji Saidu who is also the Coordinator and Special Envoy, Ecology and Marine in Africa of the International Human Rights Commission, IHRC , expressed strong worries with the rising index of illegal oil bunkering activities across the Niger Delta region, accusing military men posted to the region of aiding the rise.

He called on the federal government and the highest authority of the military to redeploy soldiers that have been in this region for more than a year to the north to combat security challenges there.

” Illegal bunkering is on the rise. Military men posted here to fight it are not achieving result because they are part of it. Government should redeploy the military men in the Niger Delta to tackle insecurity challenge in the north.”

“The military men are just here doing bunkering. The bunkering they claim to be fighting is on the rise. Military men that were posted out made their way back to the region within three months again. It shows they are the ones aiding bunkering. “

“Bunkering is rising yet oil production is coming down. We have complained to the federal government, the President . Government should take action.”

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