2023: Tambuwal stepped down, supported Atiku to retain presidency in North – Onanuga
Veteran journalist, Bayo Onanuga, said Governor Aminu Tambuwal stepped down for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in order to retain power im the North.
Onanuga accused the Sokoto State Governor of betraying his Rivers State counterpart Nyesom Wike ahead of the 2023 election.
Tambuwal stepped down for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primary in Abuja.
The withdrawal at the convention ground helped Atiku clinch the presidential ticket, leaving Wike in second place.
In a Facebook post, Onanuga said though Tambuwal was praised and called a hero by PDP national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, the governor isn’t.
“Tambuwal has destroyed his future chances of being a Nigerian leader or a future president”, the ex-News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Managing Director declared.
He noted that the former House of Representatives Speaker’s decision portrayed him as “a hegemonist”.
Onanuga said Tambuwal prevented Wike, his supporter in the 2018 primary, from winning and though the latter blamed Southern governors, “Tambuwal was the real culprit”.
“His action showed that he only wanted power to remain up north, despite the campaign of power shift southwards in 2023.”
The publisher, currently the Bola Tinubu campaign spokesperson, said Tambuwal will in the coming years find it hard to defend his action.
He argued that the governor has been a beneficiary of Pan-Nigerian support as he got support for his speakership in 2011 when the position was zoned to the South-West.
“In 2015, he reduced himself to a hegemonist, when he backed Yakubu Dogara for speakership against Gbajabiamila who had supported him in 2011.”
Onanuga said Tambuwal “has revealed himself again as a tribal jingoist, a political hegemonist” with the Atiku pact.
The pundit advised the governor to say goodbye to any national aspiration in the future and “remain an ethnic champion”.