2023: We won't vote along ethnic sentiment, coalition tells Tinubu

Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, the Coalition for Atiku-Okowa in Ekiti State has declared that the South-West would not be voting during the next year’s poll based on regional sentiment but in the capacity of the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar to unite the country.

The Coalition told the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu that the fact that he is from the region won’t rob Atiku of victory in the zone, saying the former Vice President is bonded with Yoruba by marriage.

The co-convener of the group and former member of the House of Representatives, Yemi Arokodare, said this in Ado Ekiti, on Tuesday, while formally unveiling the group for the operation ahead of 2023.

Addressing the Coalition members at the Atiku-Okowa presidential campaign building located at GRA, Ado Ekiti, Arokodare said the zone had not been known to play ethnic card in politics as reflected in the trajectory of elections in the country.

He said, “The people of the Southwest will never be swayed by sentiments, but with issues because Nigerians voted for former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo without looking at the content of their ethnicity.

“The Southwest is a sophisticated zone and we shall let the APC reap what it has sowed in Nigeria in the last seven years. We do not doubt that Nigerians are ready to vote out APC because our people have been betrayed by the party in which they invested their trust, but failed. Never again.

“It has become necessary to remind the purveyors of sentiments in the Southwest that our candidate, Vice President Atiku Abubakar is married to our amazon in the region, Mrs Titi Atiku by virtue of marriage , friendship and relationship, Atiku is our son in the Southwest , and he had demonstrated that over the years.”

Arokodare added that no amount of sentiments can wash away the APC’s sins, regretting that the party had in the last seven years led Nigeria into extreme poverty, terrorism and deaths, joblessness and hopelessness.

“All progressives from all parties, PDP, APC, SDP , LP and others who are desirous to see the end of poverty, killings , joblessness and division in our midst are in this coalition to work for Abubakar Atiku to win the 2023 presidency and rescue Nigeria from this dangerous state.

“APC is our common enemy; it has led many Nigerians into the captivity of terrorists and extreme poverty and we must get rid of them in 2023, ” Arokodare.

Another Co-convener and former PDP governorship aspirant in Ekiti, Kayode Adaramodu, appealed to the Southwest not to allow sentiment to becloud their reasoning in choosing the right President that would lead the country out of the present parlous situation.

A former banker posited that 2023 is not the time for people to start expressing unnecessary emotions that can plunge the nation into a more chaotic situation, saying people must think of how the country can be rescued from APC’s misrule.

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