Atiku promises to stop changing parties

Former Vice President and a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential aspirant, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, on Friday assured that he would stick with his new party whether he wins or loses the party’s ticket for the 2019 general elections.

Atiku stated this when he visited PDP’S headquarters in Abuja to officially inform the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party of his intention to seek the ticket to contest the presidential election.

Atiku remains one of the notable politicians in the country with a history of switching from one political party to another. He had joined PDP at the return of democracy in 1999. He later dumped the party after serving eight years as vice president under its platform for the defunct Action Congress (AC).

From AC he returned to the PDP again and after he was defeated by former President Goodluck Jonathan at the party’s primaries in 2011, Atiku in 2014 joined the All Progressives Congress (APC), which he dumped in December 2017 to again returned to the PDP.

However in his speech at the PDP national secretariat on Friday, Atiku said, “Whether I become the presidential candidate or not, I want to assure you that I will always discharge my obligations to this party.

“If we can sustain the kind of primary that we had in Ekiti, there is no doubt that this party will be on its way to regaining the preeminence in power that we were known for.”

According to the former Vice President, a free and transparent primaries would boost the PDP’S chances not only in the presidential election but also in helping the opposition party to regain its lost glory.

A member of the Atiku Abubakar Presidential Campaign Council and former PDP national chairman, Okwesilieze Nwodo, who also spoke at the meeting, urged leaders of the party to ensure that the best from the pool of aspirants that have indicated interest to contest the presidential election in 2019 under the PDP’S platform emerges.

“Another four years at the point where we are today, this country will cease to exist,” he said.

On insinuations that Atiku is corrupt he said, “People say he is corrupt but he has challenged us to blow the whistle on him. We are waiting for a whistle to be blown. He has never held a position where he can approve monies.”

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The national chairman of the party, Prince Uche Secondus, in his remarks maintained that the PDP was committed to free and fair elections, adding that the issue of imposition and impunity were now things of the past.

“The NWC and the National Executive Committee, NEC have vowed to return this party to power in line with the vision of the founding fathers. That is why we rebranded and repositioned to remove every shades of impunity or imposition.

“Our chapters now have more powers devolved to them by the national secretariat and we can assure you of a credible, free and fair primaries. We will do more than we did in Ekiti,” he said.

 

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