Former Vice president and presidential aspirant in the 2011 general election on the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has warned Nigerians not to elect someone who is not ready to be President.

Speaking during a courtesy visit to the Kaduna state government, Alhaji Abubakar said Nigeria must end the tradition of electing the reluctant, ill-prepared and ill-equipped persons as presidents.

He said that the likes of Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo were not ready to be Presidents but were forced and now the nation has come out the worse.

According to him, "my former boss and former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, was somebody who came out of prison and was not ready to be president and we dragged him to be president from his Ota farm and you can see how Nigeria ended after his tenure."

Speaking while on a visit to the Majority Leader, Kaduna State House of Assembly, Honourable Bashir Aliyu, when he officially inaugurated officials of his campaign organisation from all the states in North-West zone at their zonal head office in Kaduna, the Turaki of Adamawa said the PDP made a mistake in 1999 when it dragged Chief Olusegun Obasanjo from prison and made him to be the president of Nigeria.

Atiku Abubakar charged his supporters to work assiduously for his success in the race and cautioned the PDP not to repeat what he called the mistake of 1999 by dragging an unwilling president into the race in 2011.

He said the PDP was founded on the basis of democratic norms, because they wanted to establish a very strong political party and be able to mobilise the people of this country to ensure that military incursion in politics ended.

"I know nothing more than putting together my ability to build and manage political parties and also making them to win elections. I know what contributions I have made to ensure that PDP is what it is today. The contributions I made in deepening democracy in our party and in the country at large, " Abubakar said.