2023: Atiku Abubakar emerges PDP presidential candidate

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on Saturday emerged as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate for the 2023 general elections.

He defeated 12 other aspirants including the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed, to win the election.

The Chairman of the PDP Presidential Election Committee, David Mark, who announced the election result, said Abubakar got 371 votes to brush aside competition from Wike who polled 237 votes.

Saraki recorded 70 votes while the Bauchi governor garnered 20 votes.

READ ALSO: Tambuwal steps down from presidential race, canvasses support for Atiku

The duo of former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim and Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, secured 14 and 38 votes respectively

“763 votes were cast in the exercise with 12 voided,” Mark said.

The Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, had earlier withdrawn from the race and declared his support for Abubakar.

The former Managing Director of FSB International Bank, Muhammed Hayatu-deen, also pulled out of the presidential race over alleged monetization of the process.

Abubakar served as Nigeria’s Vice President from 1999 to 2007.

He was born on November 25, 1946 in Jada, a village which was then under the administration of the British Cameroons.

Abubakar worked in the Nigeria Customs Service for 20 years, rising to become the Deputy Director and retired in April 1989 for full-time business and politics.

He was elected the governor of Adamawa State in December 1998 and before he could be sworn in, he accepted the offer of running mate to Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo who later won the 1999 presidential election.

After Abubakar fell out with Obasanjo over the former’s third term agenda in 2006, he joined the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) ahead of the 2007 general elections and finished third in the election proper behind the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Gen. Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

He returned to PDP in 2010 and lost in the presidential primary to President Goodluck Jonathan.

Abubakar left the PDP again ahead of the 2015 election for the newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC).

He finished fourth in the party’s 2014 presidential primary won by President Muhammadu Buhari and returned to the PDP again before the 2019 general elections.

Abubakar won the PDP presidential primary held in 2018 but lost in the 2019 presidential election to President Buhari by more than four million votes.

 

 

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