“This is what the northerner needs…doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate, or an Igbo candidate.” – Atiku Abubakar

At the Arewa townhall policy dialogue held in Kaduna,  Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), infused tribalism in the presidential campaign by saying that north does not need an Igbo or Yoruba as president but “someone from the north”.

His words: “I have traversed the whole of this country. I know the whole of this country. I have built bridges across this country. I think what the average northerner needs is somebody who is from the north, and who also understands the other parts of Nigeria and who has been able to build bridges across the rest of the country.

“This is what the northerner needs. He (northerner) doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate, or an Igbo candidate. This is what the northerner needs.

“I stand before you as a pan-Nigerian of northern origin.”