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A non-governmental
organisation, Media for Ethnic Equality, has described the labelling of
Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and presidential aspirant, as a
consensus candidate as faulty and an act of media manipulation.

In a statement
issued in Lagos on Tuesday, the group said that since there was a
voting, the process that led to the emergence of the former vice
president as the candidate for the Adamu Ciroma led-Northern Political
Leaders Forum on November 22, 2010 cannot be described as a
“consensus”. “We understand that out of the nine people who constituted
the committee, five voted for Atiku while four voted against him.
Though he had highest vote, this cannot in any way be described as a
consensus because we still have four dissenting votes,” read the
statement, which was signed by the group’s Publicity Secretary, Iyiola
Johnson. “It is even more dishonest to label him as a consensus
candidate going by the fact that the committee could not even reach a
consensus over his choice. Besides, consensus system which emanated
from United Nations (UN) processes is used to completely avoid voting.
Once a process is decided through voting then it is not consensus. We
just think it is time we correct this misinformation making the rounds
in the Nigerian media.”

Carrying everybody along

According to the
group, only five ethic nationalities, representing five states of the
North, selected Mr Atiku out of over 200 ethnic nationalities in the
Northern part of the country. “Who represented other Northern states
like Plateau, Nassarawa, Kaduna and Kogi in the Ciroma-led NPLF?,” said
Mr Johnson. “If the Ciroma group is to be taken serious, they ought to
have invited other ethnic nationalities to make Mr Atiku a popular
choice.”

The group said it is time for Nigerian politicians to respect
the rights of ethnic minorities, adding that taking decisions
arbitrarily has never helped the country and the advancement of
democracy. It also advised politicians to refrain from inflammatory
statements capable of heating up the polity, saying that Nigerians at
this time more than ever before need ethnic harmony and not divisions.