Bolaji Abdullahi, the African Democratic Congress’s (ADC) national publicity secretary, has rejected Festus Keyamo, the party’s minister of aviation and aerospace development’s zoning accusation.
According to reports, Keyamo stated in a post on 𝕏 that the ADC’s fear of zoning its presidential ticket like other parties stemmed from the party’s affiliation with former vice president Atiku Abubakar.
“The ADC is afraid to explicitly ZONE its presidential ticket, like the other major parties (PDP and APC) have done, because the party is owned by one man, Atiku Abubakar @atiku,” the minister stated.
The incapacity of ADC to zone its presidential ticket is the EXACT hole that Atiku forced the PDP into in 2023.
The ADC spokesperson responded by saying that Keyamo’s stance on zoning was false in a statement.
He described how the APC disregarded zoning when choosing its presidential flagbearer in 2014, the Senate President in 2015, and the Muslim-Muslim presidential candidate in 2023.
A party with such a history shouldn’t be criticizing another, he added.
“You may be aware (or not) that the party leadership initially decided to zone the number three position to the North Central at the beginning of the controversy over who should be Senate President following the 2015 presidential election,” Abdullahi stated.
But when it appeared that Dr. Saraki would win, the ACN caucus, led by Baba Akande and Asiwaju BAT (now President), contended that zoning was unrelated to progressive politics, which they purported to represent, and was a PDP issue. They supported Ahmed Lawan of Yobe (North East) because of this.
“Given that the presidential primary that resulted in PMB seemed to have been thrown open, irrespective of zoning,” he continued, “that would not be a baseless argument.”
This allowed Rochas Okorocha (4th, 264 votes) to run alongside Sam Nda-Isaiah, Buhari, Kwankwaso, and @Atiku. In 2023, Ahmad Lawan (NE), Ahmed Sani (NW), Yahaya Bello (NC), and candidates from the South ran in the primary election, repeating this pattern.
Like in 2019, the APC in 2027 just zoned to the incumbent rather than any particular area.
Now, you would agree with me (hopefully) that religion balancing is a component of zoning as a means of fostering national unity, which has been shown to be even more essential to our cohesiveness than geographic factors.
However, when the APC opted for a Muslim-Muslim ticket, it severed this delicate thread of national cohesion.
By doing thus, the APC demonstrated that they had no time to consider religious sensitivities as long as they believed that a ticket based on the same faith would win.
“And it would be a matter of political strategy if they changed it or kept it in 2027, not because they suddenly felt guilty.”
