Former spokesman to the People Democratic Party, PDP, Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Campaign Organisation, Segun Sowunmi, has said that one of the things that took him to Daura, Katsina State, on a visit to former President Muhammadu Buhari was to know his thoughts about the possibility of a Nigerian president from the South-East.
He also said he was there for a discussion on the future of Nigeria. According to him, he visited the former president to learn from his experiences having served Nigeria for eight years. Sowunmi recently attracted criticism after sharing photos of his visit to the former president on his social media account. The former Atiku’s spokesperson, however, expressed disappointment over the reception he got from the Obidients after the visit, insisting he was only trying to broaden the discussion on South-East presidency.
His visit to Daura came barely a few days after another spokesperson for the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign, Daniel Bwala, also visited President Bola Tinubu.
“I have been seeing for some time now what is going on here, something was not adding up then I went to visit the President of whom you know I go too often and I was agonising to him that ‘look Mr, you people can feed yourself but we can’t feed ourselves.
“So the second thing is that the South easterners are quite upset with their desire to be president and I said let me go to him and have a conversation on that, ‘Mr, we collaborated with ourselves to give Yoruba the Presidency when June 12 happened, are we going to watch the South easterners struggle and be angry? Do you people have a way of figuring out this thing…? “We grew up believing that there was one north that can stabilize the others when they start to quarrel but you’ve lost the whole of the middle belt, people are dying there. And if you’re running the race you’re going to lose the northeast because when the North West stands up for election, the North East backs them, but when the North East stands up for election, you people pretend as if there’s another alternative discussion.
“These were the kind of conversations I went to have with the former President. I would have given you answers [I got from Buhari] but even the Obidients, the Peter Obi people I was trying like let’s broaden the conversation, let’s broaden the discussion they were down to angry with those abuses and I was like ‘what’s going on here?’ If everybody wants to be tribalistic, then I will be tribal too.”
