Atiku leaves APC in what is seen as first 2019 presidential declaration

FORMER vice president Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has left the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and looks set to join Nigeria's main opposition the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in what is seen as the first declared candidacy for the 2019 presidential elections.

Alhaji Atiku served as vice president between 1999 and 2007 but was unable to secure the PDP's presidential ticket for subsequent elections. He consequently defected to the APC where in 2014 he was one of its presidential candidates but lost out to President Muhammadu Buhari in the primaries.

With the 2019 elections fast approaching, it appears that President Buhari's aides are urging him to run again, so Alhaji Atiku appears to have no chance of securing the APC ticket. His leaving the APC is seen as a major boost for the PDP, desperate to get back into office and who is almost certain to make him its presidential candidate.

Alhaji Atiku issued a statement which read: “On the 19th of December, 2013, I received members of the All Progressives Congress at my house in Abuja. They had come to appeal to me to join their party after my party, the Peoples Democratic Party, had become factionalised as a result of the special convention of August 31, 2013.

“The fractionalisation of the Peoples Democratic Party on August 31, 2013 had left me in a situation where I was, with several other loyal party members, in limbo, not knowing which of the parallel executives of the party was the legitimate leadership. It was under this cloud that members of the APC made the appeal to me to join their party, with the promise that the injustices and failure to abide by its own constitution which had dogged the then PDP, would not be replicated in the APC and with the assurance that the vision other founding fathers and I had for the PDP could be actualized through the All Progressives Congress.

“It was on the basis of this invitation and the assurances made to me that I, being party-less at that time, due to the fractionalisation of my party, accepted on February 2, 2014, the hand of fellowship given to me by the All Progressives Congress. On that day, I said it is the struggle for democracy and constitutionalism and service to my country and my people that are driving my choice and my decision to accept the invitation to join the All Progressives Congress.

“Like you, I said that because I believed that we had finally seen the beginnings of the rebirth of the new Nigeria of our dreams which would work for all of us, old and young. However, events of the intervening years have shown that like any other human and like many other Nigerians, I was fallible.

“While other parties have purged themselves of the arbitrariness and unconstitutionality that led to fractionalization, the All Progressives Congress has adopted those same practices and even gone beyond them to institute a regime of a draconian clampdown on all forms of democracy within the party and the government it produced. Only last year, a governor produced by the party wrote a secret memorandum to the president which ended up being leaked. In that memo,  he admitted that the All Progressives Congress had not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight change but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of governance”.

“Of the party itself, that same governor said Mr President, Sir Your relationship with the national leadership of the party, both the formal (NWC) and informal (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso), and former governors of ANPP, PDP (that joined us) and ACN, is perceived by most observers to be at best frosty. Many of them are aggrieved due to what they consider total absence of consultations with them on your part and those you have assigned such duties.’

“Since that memorandum was written up until today, nothing has been done to reverse the treatment meted out to those of us invited to join the All Progressives Congress on the strength of a promise that has proven to be false. If anything, those behaviours have actually worsened.

“But more importantly, the party we put in place has failed and continues to fail our people, especially our young people. How can we have a federal cabinet without even one single youth. A party that does not take the youth into account is a dying party. The future belongs to young people.

“I admit that I and others who accepted the invitation to join the APC were eager to make positive changes for our country that we fell for a mirage. Can you blame us for wanting to put a speedy end to the sufferings of the masses of our people?

 “After due consultation with my God, my family, my supporters and the Nigerian people whom I meet in all walks of life, Atiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa has resigned from the APC.