Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), claims that his relationship with Bola Tinubu deteriorated in 2007 as a result of the former governor’s insistence that he run a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the presidential election of that year.
The now-defunct opposition Action Congress’s presidential candidate Atiku ran against the incumbent PDP’s Umar Yar’Adua. Yar’Adua won the election, however he passed away in May 2010 after three years in government.
In an interview with Arise Television, Atiku discussed the incident and said that Tinubu and he split over politics after the latter nominated Ben Obi, a Christian from southern Nigeria, as his running mate in the 2007 race.
He said: “He insisted on running with me and I didn’t believe it was right to have a Muslim-Muslim ticket.
“That was the point of my fundamental departure with him.”
A number of influential politicians, including Atiku, Tinubu, and others founded the Action Congress.
However, after Abubakar rejoined the PDP prior to the 2011 election, the coalition broke down, and Tinubu renamed the party the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
One of the five political groups that united to form the current ruling All Progressives Congress was the ACN (APC).
