Speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Governor Hope Uzodimma said the choice of the running mate would be decided by Tinubu and not APC governors.
Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, yesterday has warned against actions which are capable of endangering national unity and cohesion.
According to the Imo State Governor, if the choice was left to him, he would consider religious denomination, ethnicity, followership, and factors that would create spread since the business of politics was to win elections.
Fielding a question on Muslim-Muslim tickets and the choice of a running mate, he said: “There are internal characteristics that the decision-maker may consider in the process of making his decision. The decision whether to choose Mr A or Mr B to be a running mate to a candidate is entirely that of the candidate.
“You started by saying the governors of the Sout- East are complaining of not having the opportunity of being a running mate anymore. But that is not the sole ambition of Southeasterners, talkless of the governors. In the business of presidential primaries, there is no election for a vice-presidential candidate. The business there is just to elect a candidate.
“In that ballot paper, there is no room for delegates to vote for who will be your running mate. So, that explains why it is not a decision for the public. It is the decision of the candidate. The first thing to do is to let the candidate. Now a candidate has emerged.
“Now the candidate will factor into consideration some ideas and issues like how to create a spread. Spread is very important to be able to attract votes. So, the decision of who becomes your running mate, if I were the candidate, what will inform it is an action that will enable me to get the kind of votes I’m looking for because the ultimate goal is to win the election.
“So, maybe I’ll start from the denomination, ethnicity, or followership. In this business of democracy, I think the number is what is very important. And there are certain things as a nation, we should not bring to the public discourse.
“Those things that are capable of creating divisiveness against national unity should not be encouraged. It does not mean that I will not remember that I come from a place but I must also be cautious about how to use where I come from in taking national decisions.
“The second question which is about a running mate, South-East is not meant for running mate. What we wanted as a zone was to be the president of Nigeria and I was convinced that it was proper for us to ask for it. But in this business, it is partisan democracy, the minority will have their view but the majority will have their way. In the wisdom of the delegates that elected presidential candidate, a candidate has emerged, our party APC will come together, work for our candidate and produce the next president.”
Religion not a factor in the selection of a presidential running mate.
When asked to comment on the alleged move by Tinubu to run with a Muslim-Muslim ticket, the Imo governor argued that the Nigerian Constitution does not dwell on religion as a factor in the selection of a presidential running mate.
He said: “There is nowhere in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria where religion is a factor or characteristic as to who becomes the president or who becomes the running mate.
“But we are looking for a united Nigeria where governance will be the issue, where a president would be adjudged by his capacity to deliver democratic dividends, develop Nigeria to look like other parts of the Western world where democracy is working.
“I don’t want us to reduce governance in Nigeria to certain things that will encourage divisiveness. Rather, we should be a united Nigeria, be our brother’s keepers, and have a president of Nigeria that will be a president representing every tribe, every religion, and every denomination, and when we get there, we will cross the bridge.
“The decision to choose a running mate does not reside with any of us, the governors. It is the presidential candidate that will look at the local characteristics and every factor, political and apolitical that will make him win his election and take the decision. So, it’s not a decision that we will sit here and take for the candidate.”
The Imo State Governor admonished that each section of the country requires the others to be able to produce the president, saying that the South-East zone will work on what has so far prevented it from reaching the goal.
According to him, “When I appeared on Channels in the morning of the convention I told you that one of the conventions governing our polity in Nigeria is a power shift. That power comes to the north and goes to the south. When the power came to the south, in 1999, we ceded it to South West and all of us voted as Nigerians.
“The next time power came to the South, it went to South-South and all of us voted as Nigerians. We expected that now that power came back to the South, it will go to the South-East but this is not a decision that a geopolitical zone alone can take.
“No geopolitical zone can become a president without the participation of other political zones. So, when you don’t get the co-operation, you begin to find out why and you work towards getting the cooperation next time because it has to be a united country for you to become president.
“We are not talking about the president of South-East, South-South or South-West. We are talking about the president of Nigeria. For a Southerner to become president, he needs the votes from the North, for a northerner to become the president he needs the votes from the south.
No to Muslim/Muslim ticket
However, the Catholic secretariat of Nigeria has strongly warned every party against a same religion ticket, saying that it may be the hatching of an injustice against a cross-section of the people.
This was contained in a statement issued on Tuesday night in which the Catholic Church insisted that there must be sensitivity in the spread of political positions without compromising competence in 2023.
The statement titled: ‘Towards 2023 Election: Advancing the Path to Unity and Peace,’ was co-signed by the CSN’s Secretary-General, Very Rev. Fr. Zacharia Samjumi, and the Director, Social Communications, Very Rev. Fr. Michael Umoh.
It reads in part: “It is disheartening to observe that the conduct of most of our politicians seem to be going from bad to worse as we witnessed a show of shame and heightened ugly culture of money politics during the recently held primaries. While all this is going on, we must not lose sight of the fact that the unity of this country has, over the years, been maintained by a delicate balancing of the religious and the regional.
“Ordinarily, there would have been nothing wrong with a Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian ticket in a democratic dispensation if there is mutual trust and respect for the human person and where the overriding desire for seeking political office is the fostering of the common good. But one cannot say so of our country at the moment.
“With the present glaring crisis and division in the nation, a Muslim-Muslim ticket would be most insensitive and a tacit endorsement of the negative voices of many non-state actors who have been threatening this nation’s unity and peaceful coexistence without an arrest.
“We therefore strongly advise those political parties toying with a divisive agenda to have a rethink by presenting a more inclusive ticket while calling on all people of goodwill to resist this budding injustice that may be hatched against a cross-section of the people.
”The Catholic Church noted that even in the despotic military era, most juntas ensured a balance of the religious architecture in their regimes.
“We had Murtala-Obasanjo, Obasanjo-Yar’adua, Babangida-Ebitu Ukiwe, Abacha-Diya. This also applied to the heads of the various military formations and the different government parastatals like Customs, Immigrations, Finance, etc.
“Significantly, it was only during the General Muhammadu Buhari era as military Head of State (Dec 31, 1983 – Aug. 27, 1985) that we had a Muslim-Muslim military dictatorship.
“Similarly, only once did we have a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 1993 democratic elections, which featured the Abiola-Kingibe ticket and turned out to be one of Nigeria’s freest and fairest elections. But that government never took off,” the statement read.
Nevertheless, it urged all Nigerians, individually and collectively, to do everything in their power to seek and work for unity and justice, so that the nation may attain lasting peace.
