As the 2023 presidential election draws nearer, Hon. Bitrus Kaze, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has announced that he will not work for the party’s candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The former member of the House of Representatives from Plateau State said he would instead work for Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of Labour Party.
The former federal lawmaker, who made this known in an interview with journalists in Jos, the Plateau State capital, said working for the PDP candidate would be a betrayal of trust, because his emergence as a flagbearer was against the party’s zoning formula.
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He said if the main opposition party did not respect its zoning formula, his support for Obi does not amount to anti-party.
According to Kaze: “Let me be honest with you, I won’t work for Atiku, because doing so offends our social, religious, and even our economic responsibilities.
“That somebody from the North-West would be President for eight years, you expect somebody from the North-East, same religion like the outgoing to be there for another eight years; it will be betrayal of trust for me to commit myself for such a project on the Plateau, I will not.”
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“As a person, I’m at home with Peter Obi, and I will suggest to our people to vote for him, because his candidature pronounces justice, he carries every section of this country.
“I’m not afraid to say it, I’m prepared to say it anywhere”,
He however, said, “If the PDP is able to take the ticket from the North and give anybody from the South, I will support that person.”
“But to the extent that the PDP has infringed upon its own constitution, I will remain faithful to the constitution of the party by supporting anybody from Southern Nigeria, and the closest is Peter Obi”,
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According to Kaze, who represented Jos South/Jos East Federal Constituency between 2007 to 2015: “In Plateau State, they have learnt from their mistake of 2015, when they refused to zone the governorship to Plateau South, and we lost the election; now its the turn of Plateau Central and the PDP in the State has respected that by zoning it there.
“So, if I did not support the PDP candidate (late Sen. Gyang Pwajok) in my State (Plateau) in 2015, I will be unfair to him, if I support the candidature of Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 presidential race.”
“Like Peter Obi or not; you can be diehard PDP or APC but his movement is reigning and raiding everywhere in this country; nobody can pretend not to take cognisance of this, because Nigerians feel both APC and PDP on the presidential tickets are avoidable, there is no question about that.
“Therefore, I don’t want to discuss Christian-Christian or Muslim-Muslim ticket; my own is simple, the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides that this country must be administered in a manner that commands national loyalty; the constitution of the PDP says that there shall be zoning, and it shall be enforced.
“If PDP does not respect zoning at the presidential level, at what level would it respect zoning?”
