By George Onah
Port Harcourt—Presidential aspirant, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has appealed to delegates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP,  in the forthcoming party’s presidential primaries not to mortgage the future of the country but should tread with caution while choosing the party’s candidate.

Atiku who was in Port Harcourt,  Rivers State, yesterday, told PDP members at a meeting   that “the January 13, 2011-PDP primaries is very historic. It will determine the future of this country. Zoning is part of our party’s constitution, but it is very saddening that some people are kicking against it.”

Speaking at the party’s secretariat, he said “the fact of PDP party primaries ahead of us is that delegates from the North alone constitute 61 percent while that of South is mere 39 percent, but my coming here is to show that we still need each other as a nation.”  He drew attention to the fact that he was not an over ambitious person, explaining that,  he had the opportunity of becoming the president in 1999 and 2003, but decided to let it go due to respect he had for the party’s constitution on zoning.

Former Central Bank of Nigeria, CNB Governor Prof, Charles Soludo,  who also spoke, said that the January 13 election was not about Jonathan or Atiku, but about the sustenance of the socio-political and economic standing in Nigeria in the next 50 years.

Soludo said it was better for Nigeria, especially PDP delegates to support an aspirant with better footing to tackle numerous problems now facing the country. “In the last couple of months, our foreign reserve has started to nose-dive, external borrowing had gone all time high and the 2011 budget appear not have answer to any of these problems,” he said.

On his part, state chairman of PDP, Chief Godspower Ake, praised Abubakar for the visit and assured him that delegates from the state would exercise their voting rights with due maturity.