‘Your claim on PDP presidential ticket a big lie,’ Ex-Edo commissioner, Afegbua tells Atiku

A former Commissioner for Information in Edo State, Prince Kassim Afegbua, on Sunday described as outright falsehood claim by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket.

The former Vice President had on Saturday expressed confidence on his chances of securing the opposition party’s ticket for the 2023 presidential election.

Atiku, who visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the latter’s Presidential Hilltop residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State, declared that he would always get the PDP presidential ticket irrespective of the opposition.

However, in his reaction to the PDP presidential candidate in the 2019 elections remark, Afegbua in a statement he personally signed reminded him (Atiku) that he had only secured the party’s presidential ticket once since its formation in 1998.

He urged the ex-Vice President to demonstrate enough commitment to the welfare of the party.

The ex-commissioner said: “I read with dismay the statement credited to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar where he boasted that he would always get the presidential ticket of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).

“At a time when the former Vice President should be working towards strengthening the structures of the party for more electoral victories, the only thing that bothers him is all about his selfish aspiration. The party did bye-election in Cross River state, we didn’t see Alhaji Atiku Abubakar during the campaigns.

READ ALSO: 2023: I’m sure of getting PDP ticket, Atiku boasts after meeting with Obasanjo

“There was bye-election in Akure, Ondo State, yet, we did not see Alhaji Abubakar there. There was a by-election in Imo State, we didn’t see Alhaji Abubakar at the campaigns. All that matters to him is all about the presidential ticket of the party.

“Let me remind the former flag bearer of the PDP, that since formation, he has only represented the party once; in the 2019 Presidential contest. So the claim that he had always gotten the ticket to the party is a big lie.

“In 2007, when he attempted the ticket of the party, he was shown the exit door. In 2011, he used another party platform to pursue his ambition. In 2015, yet again, he tried to use the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and he was beaten soundly at the Lagos convention. That was the primary election that saw the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as the candidate of the APC.

“It was only in 2019 that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar emerged as the candidate of the PDP at the Port-Harcourt convention when it was decided by the Southern aspirants to allow All-Northern aspirants to contest the primary election. So the claim that ‘I will always get the ticket of the PDP,’ flies in the face of logic, fact and reality.”

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