Atiku Abubakar’s spokesperson, Kenneth Okonkwo, has denied reports that he opposed the selection of former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi as the party’s vice-presidential candidate. He recently had his say while speaking on Channels Television, and Nigerians have been reacting.
According to him, his earlier comments regarding the vice-presidential slot were a geopolitical position rather than opposition to Amaechi personally.
Accusing Peter Obi of betraying him, Okonkwo added that Atiku recognised his value despite his past criticisms.
His words, “I do not know where you got that from.
I said I expected that the Vice President should come from South-East. It was a geopolitical expression, not the person of anybody, and of course I understood the limitations within the Electoral Act 2026.
Remember, for anybody to be eligible to contest, you must have been a member 21 days before the primary, so the people from the South-East that I would have preferred, strictly speaking, were not even registered members, so we are restricted.
Rotimi Amaechi, Hayatu-deen, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, these were the people that were showing interest to contest the presidential election, and then when Peter Obi left, South-East was thrown into confusion, and you have to pick a vice president that has elicited interest that he wants to embark on the onerous duty of campaigning around the nation.
Amaechi got up to 500 and something voters in the primary, you cannot alienate them.
What I was agitating is that even if you have constraints, you ought to get the people of South-East and sit down with them and say, look, these are my constraints. Then they will know what they will present to their people.
Atiku was not in Nigeria when the party made the announcement, he traveled, so when he came in, he did the needful. If you recall, and that is the beauty of this great democrat. When he came in, everything was halted. When he came in, he went into dialogue, called all the parties.”
