Civil rights Advocacy Group: Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, has asked former Vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to step aside from perennial contestation to be president of Nigeria and behave like a statesman because of old age, lack of updated strategies to govern a highly complex but poor nation like Nigeria and to let the younger, more sophisticated and much more educated youngsters to try to rescue Nigeria from persistent corrupt governance.
HURIWA is of the opinion that Atiku is a member of the old school or old brigade and therefore his ideas are no longer relevant to solving the complexity of Nigeria’s economic dynamics.
Besides, the civil Rights group blasted Nobel laureate Professor Wole Soyinka for his apparent demonstration of selfishness and his clannish support for the South West to hold on to the presidency beyond 2027 which informed his ill-informed opinion that the 2023 presidential candidate of Labour Party and former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi a Philosopher, can’t be a good president in 2027.
HURIWA said Wole Soyinka who has never in his over 80 years of existence won any elective position even as a ward official of any registered political party or even as a Councillor in any of the over 700 LGAs in the country, has no experience nor the political acumen to determine who isn’t suitable for the office of presidency only because the perceived supporters of the Obedient movement backing Peter Obi’s presidential ambition, serially abused him (Wole Soyinka) on the Internet.
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HURIWA recalled that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the last election, has said he will keep contesting for the presidency as long as he is alive.
The former Vice President said this during an interview on the Hausa service of the Voice of America in Abuja.
HURIWA further recalled that Atiku during an interview with BBC last week, said he will give his total support to the former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi if his party, PDP should zone the presidency to the Southeast.
However, Atiku has made a sudden retreat stating he will “keep contesting” as long as he is hale and hearty.
He justified his change of mind by stating, “Even the former US President Abraham Lincoln contested seven times before finally winning,” he said.
“However, given the current state of the PDP, it is clear that a single-handed effort will not suffice to win the election. Strong support and collaboration with other parties are required,” he stated in reference to a coalition.
“I have made it clear in my previous speeches that if our parties are going to merge to agree on a candidate from the south-east, as long as he is qualified, we will allow it,” he added
HURIWA recalled that the former Vice President has contested six times for the top job of the seat of power in Nigeria and has failed to clinch the coveted seat just as the Rights group said Atiku Abubakar is not in the mould of Abraham Lincoln just as the group said the comparison Atiku made between himself and Abraham Lincoln is fallacious and illogical because whereas Lincoln wasn’t contesting the political position in USA of his days for pride, Atiku is on a roller coaster ride of accomplishing a selfish ambition of inking the status of president of Nigeria to his Curriculum Vitae.
The Rights group through the National coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko has asked the former VP to act as a statesman and let younger ones like Peter Obi, Atiku’s children and other youngsters with brighter ideas on how to turn over the mess that Nigeria has become with their innovative ideas because Atiku is not just a member of the status quo who destroyed Nigeria’s economy whilst in power at the centre, the erstwhile Vice President has no more quality ideas to reshape the bad economic conditions of Nigeria when he actually played central role in destroying Nigeria when he became the second most powerful political office holder as Vice president for eight years under the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo in which administration he handled the privatisation of public assets that was believed to have been widely miscarried and abused by politicians.
On the statement by Wole Soyinka that because Peter Obi’s Obedient supporters trolled him on the Internet and castigated him, therefore Peter Obi can’t be president, HURIWA dismissed Wole Soyinka’s position as an attempt to launch a premature second term campaign for his Yoruba kinsman and the current president Bola Ahmed Tinubu even when Tinubu’s academic records are shrouded in controversy and extensive doubts.
“It is shocking that such an elder statesman like Soyinka will equate himself to the position of a nation state when he rationalised that Peter Obi can’t be president because his supporters abused him on the Internet. We think this is cheap logic and is a fallacy which has come from Soyinka who is otherwise expected to always display unbiased, unselfish and intellectually robust opinion at all times. This position of Wole Soyinka is highly disappointing, puerile and laughable.”
HURIWA recalled that media reports quoted Prof. Wole Soyinka as saying that the Labour Party presidential candidate in the 2023 election Peter Obi is “unfit” to lead Nigeria.
Soyinka said this in a recent interview with digital creator Noble Eyisi.
The renowned playwright said Obi, a two-term former governor of Anambra State, was “unfit” to lead the country over the actions of his supporters, ‘Obidients’.
Obi came third in the 2023 presidential election behind Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Soyinka added that he hoped that the former governor did not vie for the presidency in the 2027 election.
He said: “I hope for the sake of the nation that he doesn’t express interest in the next election because for me as a leader if there was any proof that he was unfit to lead that country, it’s in the conduct which he encouraged among his followers.
“I know for a fact that he was in control of those forces.”
Soyinka further stated that dishonest political leaders were encouraging the “divisive actions of the group”, adding: “One of these days, they would turn on them and teach them a lesson.
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“It has to do with education. I didn’t read all these insults from Obidients but of course, some links were sent to me, especially when facts were being manufactured.
HURIWA however faulted Soyinka for alleging that Peter Obi allowed his supporters to abuse him, Soyinka, because according to HURIWA, it is on record that Peter Obi personally appealed to his supporters not to disrespect Soyinka. HURIWA thinks Professor Wole Soyinka is actually working for his kinsman Bola Ahmed Tinubu to get reelected in 2027 even when it is notoriously known that the president has through his poorly implemented economic policies, created more absolutely poor households than he met the statistics on May 29th 2023. HURIWA is asking Soyinka not to bring disrespect to himself by being biased and partisan due to ethnicity. “Soyinka is presumed by some of us as a respected statesman, he must never give us the opportunity to now view him as an ethnic jingoist and a Yoruba irredentist.”