Osita Okechukwu, a founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s determination to stay in the race has “conclusively vindicated” those who accuse him of helping to shrink the country’s political space into a one-party setup.
Okechukwu claims Atiku keeps peddling “serial propaganda” that President Bola Tinubu is engineering a one-party state, while privately working to block Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s move to the African Democratic Congress (ADC). According to him, this duplicity is the same anti-democratic streak Atiku showed during the 2023 PDP primaries that, in Okechukwu’s view, broke the party beyond repair.
“Nigerians can now see that the loud cry about APC building a one-party state is just a smokescreen,” he said.
“The opposition’s real problem is its own division, lack of strategy and deep-seated aversion to internal democracy.”
Okechukwu argues that Atiku’s latest declaration exposes an opposition held hostage by personal ambition. No one, he says, will yield ground for the collective good or respect the zoning convention that rotates the presidency between north and south to keep the federation balanced.
“As an octogenarian and elder statesman, Atiku should help forge a Peter Obi–Rabiu Kwankwaso ticket for 2027, to give the country a lively, credible contest and spare us another north–south showdown. Instead, he is fuelling the same sectional politics he claims to oppose.”
He insists APC’s staying power is less about incumbency and more about the opposition’s failure to place national interest above individual ambition.
“The real threat to our democracy is not one-party dominance; it is the reckless dysfunction of those meant to provide a real alternative.”
