Peter Obi: You’re scared – Atiku’s aide replies Keyamo over ‘ADC zoning’ comment

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, has rubbished claims by the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo that the African Democratic Congress, ADC, is scared of zoning its presidential ticket like other political parties.

Shaibu said Keyamo and those in power are afraid that the team of Atiku and Peter Obi would collapse their “carefully engineered monopoly of power.”
Keyamo had said there is no hiding place for the ADC and opposition, adding that the party is afraid to zone its presidential ticket.

Responding, Shaibu said “when power fears choice, it starts shouting “zoning.”
Posting on X, Shaibu wrote: “My dear @fkeyamo, Your recent outbursts following the public declaration of Peter Obi for the ADC reveal more than political disagreement. They reveal panic—panic at the collapse of a carefully engineered monopoly of power.

“You have been ranting because the script you helped write has been disrupted.
“After choking the PDP through internal sabotage and state intimidation, and deliberately crippling the Labour Party through legal harassment and administrative strangulation, you assumed the opposition space had been cleared. You assumed Nigerians had no options left. You assumed resignation would replace resistance. You were wrong.
“Your sudden obsession with @atiku, @Peterobi  and “zoning” is not driven by concern for national unity. It is a convenient talking point, dusted up only because a new political vehicle has emerged—one that threatens the artificial calm sustained by fear, defections, and state power.

“Zoning is not a constitutional commandment. It is a political arrangement—used when convenient and ignored when inconvenient. To pretend otherwise is bad faith.
“Saying that the ADC “belongs to one man” is ironic, coming from an administration that permanently uses government power to break opposition parties, pressure governors, and silence critics. Coalitions do not frighten democrats. They frighten those who fear competition, like you.”
Shaibu said calling any Atiku–Peter Obi engagement “camouflage” is an insult to Nigerians.

He added: “Votes are not bags to be secretly transferred across party lines. Support is earned, not inherited. Millions of Nigerians support @atiku and @PeterObi not because they are foolish, but because they are hungry, angry, and exhausted from watching their country deteriorate while the government of Tinubu offer only excuses and insults.”
He insisted that describing these same citizens as “naive” is contemptuous.
Shaibu added: “Nigerians know exactly who presides over collapsing purchasing power, rising food prices, worsening insecurity, and shrinking hope. They do not need lectures from a panic-stricken Minister of Aviation whose own political ambitions in Delta State were cut short by the same coercive politics he now defends.
“You boast of your party’s “triumph” in 2023. Nigerians are living with the audit of that contraption every day—in the markets, on the roads, and in their homes. It is brutal. And no amount of shouting about zoning can drown out the sound of empty stomachs.
“Let us be clear: Nigeria’s unity is not threatened by this coalition. It is threatened by poverty, injustice, exclusion, and a government that mistakes power retention for nation-building.
“So yes, Festus Keyamo, there is no hiding place. Not for the opposition you mock. And certainly not for a ruling party that has exhausted excuses.
“What Nigerians are rejecting is not politics. They are rejecting the continuity of failure dressed up as stability.”