Atiku Jittery Over Tinubu’s Northern Push – Keyamo

Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development Festus Keyamo has claimed that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s political strategy for the 2027 elections was based on the assumption that President Bola Tinubu would not compete for votes in the North.

Keyamo, in a statement ahead of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign flag-off in Kaduna,  accused Atiku of being “particularly jittery” because his demographic calculations are collapsing.

“His original projection was that President Tinubu would not compete for votes in the North and would be restricted to parts of the South,” Keyamo said.

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He alleged that Atiku sponsored “unserious presidential candidates from the South” in a bid to divide southern votes and leave the North for himself.

“However, with the solid APC structures in the North backing the President, Atiku Abubakar has seen that his demographic calculation for the 2027 elections regarding northern votes is dissolving like Andrews Liver Salts in water,” Keyamo said.

“Hence the resort to these desperate tactics.”

The minister also dismissed Atiku’s chances, noting that he lost across the Middle Belt and all Southern states except Osun in 2023.

“He knows that even if he wins in some parts of the North and the President comes a close second, the election is as good as over, because those differences would be wiped out by his heavy defeat in the Middle Belt and the South,” Keyamo said.

He argued that Atiku cannot replicate late President Muhammadu Buhari’s 2015 sweep of the North, stating that his “corruption-laden past puts him poles apart” from the former president.

“Atiku Abubakar is a butterfly that thinks it is a bird,” Keyamo added.