The All Progressives Congress has said it has not zoned the 2015 Presidency to the North, South or any other part of the country.
It also faulted claims that it was a Muslim party because of the appointment of some of its interim leaders.
The National Publicity Secretary of one of the merging political parties, the Congress for Progressive Change, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, and his counterpart in the Action Congress of Nigeria, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, stated this in separate interviews with Saturday PUNCH.
Mohammed said it was too early to talk about zoning when the party had not held its inaugural convention, where permanent officers would be elected.
He said, "How can a party talk about zoning when it has not even done its registration? How can the party be talking about zoning the Presidency?
"The party that is yet to be issued a certificate, a party that does not even have guidelines to guide its primaries, how can that party zone a particular office to a particular zone?"
While denying the Muslim tag being given the APC, he said, "As you can see from the promoters of this party, as you can also see from the list of our interim leaders, if the truth must be told, in certain parts of Nigeria certain religions are dominant.
"If you look at our list, of the six nominees of APGA, they were only able to get one Muslim. But look at the ACN, of the nine officers, only four are Muslims.
"Now, exactly what happened to APGA was replicated in CPC and the ANPP on the other side of the divide.
"If you look at the ANPP for instance, they have Nelson Alapa, Emma Eneukwu, who are Christians. You can see that despite all of that, there is a deliberate attempt on the part of the party to balance up."
Mohammed accused the ruling Peoples Democratic Party of being desperate in its quest to reverse the gains so far made by the APC.
Also speaking on the issue, Fashakin said those behind the propaganda to label the APC a Muslim party were out to destroy Nigeria's unity.
He said, "The bane of the Nigerian society is dishonest elite. We have very dishonest elite always ready to come up with the twin evils of the Nigerian society, which are ethnicity and religion.
"Let me give you an example. The man who started all this whole nonsense about APC being a Muslim party used to be a top ranking official of one of the three parties that make up APC.
"But because the position of Financial Secretary was not ceded to his party; he went to town and started shouting that APC is a Muslim party.
"Why is it that I, Rotimi Fashakin, the CPC Publicity Secretary, why is it that I have not gone to town to shout that APC is a Muslim party because the National Publicity Secretary position was not zoned to my party? It is because I am not as dishonest as these people.
"The APC is not a Muslim party. It is a party that takes into account the multi-ethnic and multi-religious composition of our nation while not ignoring the vital role of merit.
The Punch