2027: Kachikwu accuses Atiku, Northern elite of desperation

…insists Ralph Nwosu’s transfer of party illegal

…says he will contest the Presidency on ADC ticket 

Former Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Dumebi Kachikwu, has accused former Vice president and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and certain leaders in the North of an orchestrated gang up against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu aimed at truncating a fresh mandate for the incumbent President who incidentally is from the south west region of the country.

Kachikwu made the claim on Friday at a press briefing in Abuja.

Apparently raising concerns over the rejection of the power rotation between the North and South, the former ADC presidential candidate raised the alarm that poverty in the North is being weaponised by the power elite in the region to discredit the present administration of Bola Tinubu.

Kachikwu, who accused the former presidential candidate of Labour Party, Peter Obi, of political naivety over the latter’s romance with the ADC, also alleged that former president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, is equally being lured to join the ADC ahead of the forthcoming general elections. 

He cautioned the former president not to fall for the bait, which he noted was an agenda to weaken the southern part of the country.

He said: “Nigerians, please listen to me loud and clear: Atiku Abubakar and a few northern elites who have for decades held political power but did nothing to alleviate the undereducation and attendant impoverishment in northern Nigeria for political purposes are at it again. They have armed the weapons of region, religion, tongue, tribe, and poverty as they convince millions of poor Northerners that a southern President Tinubu hates them and is the cause of their poverty.

“On a daily basis, they are spreading deliberate falsehoods against not only President Tinubu but against all potential southern aspirants for the Office of President. A Peter Obi has been told in very clear terms that he will never get northern votes as an Ibo man, and as such, he should accept to be Atiku’s running mate.

“In order to weaken the South, they have now drafted in former President Jonathan into the race, who is alleged to be offering Peter Obi the position of coordinating Minister of the Economy for him to support his ambition. In all these, Nigerians are the losers because meritocracy, which can only thrive when ceteris paribus is in play, has been thrown out of the door because of a truth ceteris paribus doesn’t exist in the Nigerian ecosystem. Sadly, I am now here before you championing the cause of a southern presidency, a notion that before now was totally against all I believed in. Nigeria has indeed happened to me.

“I urge all Nigerians to resist former vice president Atiku and his co-travellers who don’t believe in an equitable Nigeria. We must all come to equity with clean hands and sincerity of purpose.

“We don’t burn our houses because we want to kill rats and cockroaches; sometimes we just need to make our houses clean so that rats and cockroaches leave on their own.

My earnest prayer is that Nigeria will soon work for everyone of us. “

The former ADC presidential candidate restated his claim that the erstwhile National Chairman of the party’s discussions with members of the Atiku Abubakar-led Coalition, and the eventual transfer of the party structures to the group, did not enjoy the blessings of top chieftains of the party and state chairmen.

He further alleged that signatures of some state chairmen of the party were forged to ensure a favorable judgment in a suit before the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, as he claimed that the justices were ignorant of the false evidence presented before them.

He said: “I  have here before you terms of settlement entered as judgement in the Court of Appeal of Nigeria holding at Port Harcourt with Appeal No: CA/PH/225/2023 between the ADC, Chief Ralph Nwosu, Engineer Ede Lawrence as appellants and some of the ADC state chairmen as respondents.

“What is the fraud? To use the ADC they needed to free it of all legal encumbrances such as those challenging Ralph Nwosu’s fraudulent claim to the chairmanship of the party and so they forged signatures of some of the chairmen who were not interested in the sale of the party and presented it to the court as terms of settlement which the Court of Appeal adopted as judgement. I have here copies of said judgement and international passport copies of the chairmen whose signatures were forged, ladies and gentlemen of the press please compare the signature specimens. Our lawyers have dispatched petitions to the appropriate law enforcement agencies on this.”

The former presidential candidate equally dropped a hint of running for the 2027 presidential race. Asked on which platform he would adopt to pursue his aspiration, Kachikwu vowed he would run the race under the ADC.

“The constitution of our party does not preclude me from contesting. I have no plan B. It is those who have hijacked our party that are talking about plan B. That’s why they are talking about the All Democratic Alliance ( ADA)

“ADC as at today has a peculiar situation: we don’t have a national chairman. The tenure of Nwosu elapsed two years ago. As at today, ADC has no functional National Working Committee.”

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