A House of Representatives candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Vrati Nzonzo, has highlighted how he and other candidates in Christian-dominated communities face possible rejection because of the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the party.
Vrati said in an interview with newsmen in Yola on Friday that the decision by the party’s presidential candidate, Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu, to make a fellow Muslim, Kasheem Shettima his running mate still rankles among his Christian kit and kin and it robs badly on the party’s candidates for the different political offices to be contested for in the 2023 election.
Vrati Nzonzo who has the APC ticket for the Numan/Demsa/Lamurde Federal constituency said APC’s Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket makes his candidacy difficult to sell to his people.
Vrati said, “It will affect us, we APC candidates in Christian-dominated areas, but we are hoping to be able to make our people understand that we differ if the position of the party suggests that Christians don’t matter.”
Explaining how the APC Muslim-Muslim ticket poses a challenge to candidates like him, Vrati, a former chairman of Lamurde local government Council, said, “I am from a Christian-dominated constituency: Numan/Demsa/Lamurde. Are you now telling people not to vote for me since my party does not recognize my faith or refuses to be fair to my faith?
“If you are telling my people from Christian-dominated parts of the North where many of us come from and are seeking votes in 2023 that the presidency can be won without Christians, it’s not fair. Even if you actually win, you would have passed a rancorous message.”
He emphasized that he remained opposed to the same-faith ticket of the party because the arguments for it do not add up.
He said, however, that despite his opposition to the same-faith ticket of the APC, he remains an APC man who has to support APC and its presidential candidate.
“I have no option. I am an APC candidate. I am an APC person and I will support APC. I will support Tinubu,” he said. Continue Reading
