The former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has congratulated the former governor of Lagos State, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, the winner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) ticket.
In his congratulatory message on his social media handle, Atiku wrote: “Congratulations, @officialABAT, on your emergence as your party’s presidential candidate. It has been a hard-fought contest, but that you prevailed confirms your tenacity. -AA”
Meanwhile, the Media and Publicity Directorate, Yahaya Bello Presidential Campaign Organization, has said that the process of the APC presidential primary election was largely peaceful but highly compromised.
The director of the campaign organization, Yemi Kolapo, in a statement, pointed out that Bello remains the hero of the oppressed.
The campaign organization said: “The All Progressives Congress’ presidential primary elections have come and gone. The process was largely peaceful but highly compromised. This is however not new in a country where democracy is defined as the government of the oppressors by the oppressors and for the oppressors.
“It is sad to note that those who should know and who many progressives had thought of as leaders with integrity are the ones working against the people they were (s)elected to represent for egocentric reasons.
“In this process, one leader stands out, according to the majority of Nigerians. And that leader is one that has proven to the downtrodden and those regarded as ‘Nigerians without surnames,’ that regardless of agelong intimidation by the elite, the best of our people can stand tall without compromising the values that we should have been known for as a nation.
“That leader, I say with all sense of fairness, is Governor Yahaya Adoza Bello of Kogi State.
He is the hero of this process and has made his point loud and clear to the admiration of even his worst enemies.”
The campaign organization also pointed out that the Northern governors ganged up against the Kogi state governor, Yahaya Bello.
“If there was a clear, desperate gang-up by northern governors and the leaders of a party against one person, and that person never for once disappointed his teeming supporters but rather fought to the very end, not minding the crooked process, then he should be celebrated by the constituency he represents – the youth.
“A mode of primaries whereby delegates who have largely been pocketed by their paymasters and who defer to the highest bidder are made to choose flagbearers of a political party is as warped as the process itself,” the Group said.
The campaign organization explained how Bello was shortchanged at the primary, adding, “It is obvious that in a bid to prove that he is not one of them, enemies of this project, Nigeria, went beyond speaking with delegates and oiling their palms to ensure that votes that did not represent Yahaya Bello’s popularity were counted against his name. But they have unwittingly made him the hero of the moment.
“We do not have to talk much but to pray that God Himself would deliver Nigerians from the hands of enemies of democracy. Poverty is a tool they have used for a long to keep Nigerians poor. At the right time, however, this jinx must break!
“We only wish that this obvious crack in the ceiling would not eventually make the ceiling