A founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Osita Okechukwu, has dismissed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s claim that the nation’s democracy is under threat due to alleged efforts by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration to weaken the opposition.

Okechukwu, a former Director-General of the Voice of Nigeria (VON), said Atiku’s long-standing presidential ambition, not the current government, is responsible for any strain on the country’s democratic framework.

He made the remarks in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday while responding to Atiku’s recent warning.

He argued that a deeper reflection would show that the deterioration of Nigeria’s democratic culture began with Atiku’s decision to disregard the long-standing rotation convention during the 2023 presidential election.

According to him, this breach significantly contributed to the political imbalance and the weakening of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Okechukwu further accused the former PDP presidential candidate of taking the same path ahead of the 2027 elections with what he described as a “Kasuwa Ndollar” approach to the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential primaries. He said non-adherence to the rotation principle and Section 7 of the PDP Constitution played a major role in destabilising the party.

“Atiku Abubakar is, regrettably, one of the foremost culprits of this unforced error, which gravely cannibalised the PDP,” he stated.

He added that Atiku risks repeating past mistakes in the ADC, noting that no other presidential aspirant in the party can match his financial capacity.

Okechukwu recalled that the rotation convention, adopted at the onset of the Fourth Republic in 1999, was designed to reinforce unity, equity, and stability through the alternation of presidential power between the North and South.

He said Atiku benefitted from this arrangement, as he would not have become Vice President in 1999 without it.

He also referenced the commitment of northern political leaders such as Abubakar Rimi, Umaru Shinkafi, Adamu Ciroma, Bamanga Tukur, and Sola Saraki to the zoning formula, which enabled Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to contest after his release from detention during the Abacha era.

Okechukwu reminded Atiku of his departure from the 2014 PDP National Convention, when he protested that it was the North’s turn to produce the President, leading to his eventual defection to the APC.

“Whereas one admits that my great party APC, has its own fault lines, is it not a calamity that the same Atiku Abubakar, widely acknowledged as the mastermind of PDP’s rotation breach and its resultant destabilization, is now allegedly setting the stage for a similar breach within the ADC, when knows that our presidential primary is “Kasuwa Ndollar?”Okechukwu queried.

“Or should President Tinubu now be blamed for this fresh violation of the same zoning principle?” The deliberate breach of rotation.

He therefore submitted that Atiku Abubakar’s assertion that “the systematic weakening of opposition platforms represents a grave danger to Nigeria’s democratic future” deserves more rigorous self-scrutiny and contextual honesty.

Accordingly,Okechukwu posited that Atiku cannot harvest Buhari’s 12 million Vote-Bank, because majority in the north subscribe to the rotation convention and also they know him as Mai Kasuwa and among Nigeria’s less than transparent clan, therefore not Mai Gasakiya (incorruptible).