Presidency: APC Has Not Zoned Me Out – Atiku

Former Vice President and
a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has dismissed some media reports to the effect that the APC had shut the door against his presidential ambition in 2015.
Some newspapers (The Tide not included) had reported that going by the zoning arrengement of the APC which conceded the prime position of the National Secretary to the North-East, the presidential candidate of the party would ultimately come form the North-West where two presidential hopefuls, former Head of State, Gen, Muhammed Buhari (rtd) and Kano State governor, Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso hail from.
The former Vice-President is from Adamawa State in the North-East.
But Atiku, in a statement issued at the weekend, said at no time did the APC’s Convention Planning Committee or its recently-dissolved Interim National Executive Council discuss the issue of zoning of elective offices outside the positions of the party’s leadership which, he said, were filled at the highly successful convention held last Friday.
Describing as “a hatchet job for Aso Rock” a front page lead story of a newspaper with a screaming headline: ‘Atiku Zoned Out’, the former Vice President said, “As for the presidential ticket, the position of all organs of the party is that it is open to all Nigerians irrespective of where they come from.”
The statement which disclosed that Atiku would, any moment from now, make a pronouncement on his ambition, however, appealed to the loyalists of the APC chieftain and the general public to disregard what it called “these false reports emanating from the presidency which are designed to deter him from offering his services to Nigerians.”
The statement accused the presidency of being behind the alleged mischievous news reports and wondered “ why the presidency is so scared of the prospect of Dr Jonathan facing Atiku in 2015.”