Home » Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP) » Defection: Atiku’ll come back soon, says PDP

Defection: Atiku’ll come back soon, says PDP

 

Former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku AbubakarFormer Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar
| credits: File copy

THE Peoples Democratic Party on Tuesday said ex-Vice President Abubakar Atiku, who defected to the opposition All Progressives Party on Monday, would soon return.

The PDP said Atiku was on a voyage to the APC and that he would soon come back to the ruling party.

Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Prince Uche Secondus, who said this in Abuja, said the ex-Vice President had once defected to the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria to contest the 2007 presidential election and returned to the PDP.

He spoke at the Wadata Plaza national secretariat of the PDP during the opening ceremony of the party’s National Woman Leader’s strategic consultative workshop with women in media and communications.

Secondus said, “Our party is the strongest, others are struggling. APC is just starting registration, something we did 13 years ago. It just started and cannot meet us. What APC is doing is party gymnastic.

“The good thing is that the PDP is so consistent and constant that when they leave, they go on a voyage and they come back and we receive them.

“I can tell you that they will go and come back and we are waiting for (Abubakar) Atiku to go on this voyage and to come back.

“He has done it before, this is not the first time and we will welcome him back when he comes because APC cannot win election, they are not firmly rooted.”

The  gale   of  defections that   has  hit   the PDP in recent weeks notwithstanding, the party’s deputy national chairman said that it was sure of winning the 2015 elections.

He said the exodus from the party, which has controlled the Federal Government since the return of democracy in 1999, would not affect its chance at the next year’s general elections.

Secondus appealed to members of the party not to panic, adding that with the statistics done by the leadership of the party, there should be no cause for alarm.

The defection by Atiku, a founding member of the party, followed the exit of five governors from the PDP.

Also 37 members of the party in the House of Representatives had defected to the APC, thus giving the opposition party a slight majority in the House.

Ex-governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki, on Monday in Ilorin made public his defection from the PDP. Saraki and 10 other PDP senators were said to have written to the Senate President, David Mark, to notify the Senate of their change of allegiance to the APC.

But the letter is yet to be read on the floor of the Senate, a pre-condition to be met by the defecting senators.

The ex-PDP governors that have crossed over to the APC are Aliyu Wamakko, Sokoto; Rotimi Amaechi, Rivers; Abdulfatai Ahmed, Kwara;  Murtala Nyako, Adamawa; and Rabiu Kwankwanso, Kano.

Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, has said that the party will compensate loyal members.

Mu’azu said this during a visit to him at the party’s secretariat in Abuja by members of the Goodluck Support Group elders’ council, led by former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu.

Mu’azu, who was responding to Mantu’s complaints that loyal party members have not been adequately compensated, said the PDP would provide a level playing ground to all members.

He urged all PDP support groups not to stay in Abuja, but to embark on grassroots mobilisation for the party towards the 2015 general elections.

“PDP will provide a level playing ground to all members. I agree with you, but I will meet with the President so that party loyal members are adequately compensated,” he said.

-Punch

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Posted by on Feb 4 2014. Filed under Party Politics, Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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