A former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, on Monday, appealed to former Jigawa Governor Sule Lamido to step down for him in the race to clinch the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP ticket to the 2019 general elections, saying that Mr Lamido is his younger brother and shares the same political ideology with him.
Mr Abubakar, who made the appeal at the PDP headquarters in Dutse, Jigawa State, urged Mr Lamido to replicate what happened between in the Third Republic when the Yar’Adua brothers initially sought the tickets of the defunct Social Democratic Party.
“But with the intervention of elders in the state, the junior brother Umar Musa stepped down for another aspirant so that the politics will not be a family affair, leaving Shehu Musa to contest for president while someone from another family vied for governor,” Mr Abubakar said.
According to the former vice president, his mother was from Jigawar Sarki, a village in Dutse Local Government Area of Jigawa State before her family migrated to Adamawa State.
He, therefore, said that “Sule Lamido is my junior brother and will learn from what transpired between Shehu Musa and Umaru Musa.”
In his remark, the state PDP chairman, Salisu Mahmuda, called on the aspirants to be united to prevent what he called an automatic second coming of the All Progressives Congress, APC, administration in the country.
Whoever emerges the PDP candidate is expected to be the main challenger to President Muhammadu Buhari in next year’s presidential election.