The All Progressives Congress, APC was yesterday moving to fortify unity in its ranks after one of its leading members and Nigeria’s former vice-president, Atiku Abubakar left the party in response to what he described as the clampdown of democracy in the party. Hours after Atiku issued his exit statement, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Mr. Boss Mustapha, himself at one time a very close confidant of Atiku, made a high profile visit to the APC national secretariat where the issue of unity was stressed.
Also following the Atiku move, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State who Atiku cited in his resignation statement as having previously outlined the fault lines in the APC, made a conspicuous visit to the Presidential Villa. His visit was interpreted in some quarters as a form of solidarity to the party leader, President Muhammadu Buhari who was perceived as the object of Atiku’s rebellion. The moves for cohesion Saturday Vanguard learnt yesterday were in response to mutterings about significant departures from the party by already vexed senior chieftains of the party.
Sources have noted that as many as 20 APC senators were bidding to depart the party. One of those repeatedly mentioned yesterday was Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso. Saturday Vanguard could not reach him as at press time yesterday.
The national leadership of the party, however, said yesterday that it would not be bothered by Atiku’s exit unless a significant number of party members went with him. The presidency which was partly the butt of Atiku’s reason for leaving was not in a position to respond to the development yesterday. Mallam Garba Shehu a long time associate of the former vice-president who was donated to help the Muhammadu Buhari campaign and subsequently became the president’s spokesman was not available for comments on the development. Governor El-Rufai was nevertheless dismissive of the move by Atiku who he described as a serial presidential contestant affirming that the former vice-president would return to the APC after the 2019 presidential election after failing to get the presidential ticket of his new party. Meanwhile, Atiku was yesterday pondering his next move. Aides were dismissive of claims that Atiku may contemplate the nuclear option of exiting politics as some were speculating yesterday. Atiku who arrived Yola, Adamawa State yesterday, it was learned, could register for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in his Kojoli Ward in Jada Local Government Area this weekend. Announcing his decision to leave the APC which he helped to build and win the 2015 presidential election, Atiku in a statement issued by his media office yesterday morning said the party had derailed from its objectives.
While alleging a draconian clampdown of democracy in the APC, a derailment of its set objectives in governance and the abandonment of the Nigerian youth, the former vice-president in the early morning statement said he was as such resigning his membership of the party forthwith, saying that joining APC was a mistake. He referred to the leaked memo from Governor El-Rufai in September 2016 in which the governor alleged that the principal founders of the party like Atiku, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso had been marginalized in the running of the party and government. Atiku further noted that more than a year after the memo no action was taken to repair the breach, and that the breach had been worsened, and left him with no option than to leave the party. He said: “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 factionalized as a result of the special convention of August 31, 2013. “The fractionalization 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 fractionalization 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.
Vanguard
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