By Ademola Adeleye
Atiku Abubakar has revealed that his fundamental disagreement with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) since 2007 presidential election was over same faith ticket.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate spoke in a chat with Arise TV on Friday.
Reacting to Tinubu’s choice of a Muslim running mate, Atiku said it was why he “departed politically” from the former Lagos governor.
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He claimed that Tinubu had wanted to be his running mate for the AC presidential ticket, and he refused.
Atiku added that he and Tinubu are “still friends” but they “have political differences”.
“My fundamental disagreement and political departure with Asiwaju [Tinubu] since 2007 was due to the Muslim-Muslim ticket. Remember, I opted out of PDP because of zoning, and together with Asiwaju we formed ACN,” the PDP candidate said.
“Tinubu wanted to be my running mate when I was given the ACN presidential ticket in 2007, but I disagreed. And because of that, he switched his support to the late Umar Yaradua. That was the parting point.
“The Muslim-Muslim ticket has always been my fundamental disagreement. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and multi-religious nation, and there should be a religious balance in our leadership.
“We are still friends, of course. But that doesn’t mean we won’t have political differences. We have been having political differences ever since we became friends. Nothing unusual about that.”
