A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Babachir Lawal, has pledged to support the presidential candidate of the leading opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, ahead of the 2023 general elections.
He said the APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, would not win the election on account of his party’s Muslim/Muslim ticket which had generated controversies.
In an interview with the BBC on Wednesday, Babachir claimed that he and others supported Tinubu to win the primary election not knowing his intention to pick a Muslim running mate.
He said, “I am not for Bola Tinubu now. I am not for a Muslim/Muslim ticket. It is Bola who did not want to go with us, he chose where he wants to go, and we told him that we will not vote for him if he did a Muslim/Muslim ticket.
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“PDP discussed with us and they agreed to do what we want if we support them and we agreed to support them.”
PDP is fielding a Muslim/Christian ticket, with Atiku Abubakar as its presidential candidate and Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, a Christian, as his running mate.
Babachir further said that the Labour Party (LP) tried to convince him and other aggrieved members of the APC to work for the party, adding that, “You see, the problem of the Northerners, if you say you are a Christian, it is difficult for us to get jobs.
“You see, of the 27 universities in the North, there are only two Christian VCs, and of the 27 polytechnics, there are only two Christian rectors, that is federal, not to talk of state-owned.”
Babachir lamented that the “discrimination” shown to Christians in the North was too much for them, saying, “And you still went ahead to do Muslim/Muslim ticket; that is double blow on us.”
When he was asked whether they tried to reach out to Tinubu to discuss the issue, he said, “No, he is the one to look for us now. I will not look for him. We have a place to go and a place to stay. But he didn’t look for us. If he sees that he will win the election, let’s see how he will win the election.”
While maintaining that he was still in the APC, he said, “If Buhari leaves politics, I will also leave because I joined politics because of him.”
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