Festus Keyamo, spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign, has berated the presidential flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, for asking northerners not to vote southern candidates.

Sharing the video on Twitter in which Mr Abubakar asked northerners to vote for a president of northern extraction and not for Igbo or Yoruba presidential candidates, Mr Keyamo called Mr Atiku a thoughtless and desperate politician.

“Watch! This is the height of desperation and daredevilry on the part of Atiku!,” Mr Keyamo said. “This is so horrendous, so horrible and so thoughtless for Atiku Abubakar to use ethnicity to campaign, saying the north does not need a Yoruba or Igbo candidate. My God! Atiku needs to quit the race today!”

A former vice president between 1999 to 2007, Mr Abubakar had said “It (Northern Nigeria) doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate or an Igbo candidate. This is what the northerners need. So I believe I stand before you as a pan-Nigerian of Northern origin.” 

Mr Abubakar prides himself as a unifier. However, this charge that the north must vote a northerner goes contrary to the public image of a unifier that he’s portrayed over the years. 

At 75, Mr Abubakar will contest the 2023 presidential election against several contestants, including candidates of the APC and the Labour Party, Bola Tinubu and Mr Obi respectively, who are of southern extraction.

Mr Abubakar has since 1993 sought five times and failed to be Nigeria’s president; failing at party primary level three times and twice in the main elections.