Tinubu, Atiku, Others Should Drop 2023 Presidential Bid, Says APC Chieftain

Ahead of the 2023 presidential election, a Chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Alhaji Bala Adamu Kuta, has told the National Leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to forget about their presidential bids.

Kuta also said that the trio of Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi, Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna state and Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State should abandon their interests in the 2023 presidential race.

Kuta, Chairman of the Upper Benue River Basin Development Authority told newsmen in Minna on Tuesday that all the political heavy weights mentioned had shown direct or indirect interests in the plum job, as such they should forget about their ambitions.

He claimed that the major religions states that, “if anyone says he wants power don’t give such a person power because he or she will be a failure or misuse the power.”

He also advised the APC to forget about zoning the presidency and governorship of the states, saying that: ” All qualified and credible” people, notwithstanding their areas of origin, should be allowed to seek the tickets of the party for the positions.

“Let the people make their choice, we should not restrict the presidential or governorship tickets to a particular zone or area of the country or the state”.

Asked to react to the claim by Minister of Works Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola that the APC had a written agreement since 2015 to shift the presidency to the South West geo- political zone, Kuta said: ” I am not aware of the agreement even if there was an agreement. Events over the last couple of years had made the agreement a nullity.”

“The only way to move Nigeria forward is to abandon zoning because zoning can throw up a wrong candidate, if we are sincere about moving Nigeria forward, we should forget about zoning”.

Kuta also appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to listen to the voice of Nigerians and sack the Service Chiefs, adding that ” majority of Nigerians cannot be wrong”

He attributed the crisis that had polarised the Niger state chapter of the APC to what he described as “a wrong start”, adding “there was a wrong start, we planted those who did not have anybody at the grassroots.

“We should now allow free and fair election, if we go the way we went before by appointing people the problem will continue”.

The problem of the Niger state chapter of the party Kuta said was that ” it is not properly managed, the party has been left in the hands of inexperienced people, it is run by two or three people only”.

The State Executive of the party was recently sacked by a group which also appointed a caretaker committee to run the affairs of the party.