Atiku To Declare For APC At A Grand Rally In Yola

 
Barring any last minute change, former vice President Atiku Abubakar will tomorrow declare for APC in Yola, the Adamawa State capital at a rally to be attended by his supporters from across the country.

Ahead of his formal declaration for the APC tomorrow at a rally in Yola, Atiku will today issue a letter of intent to leave the PDP to the party’s national secretariat in Abuja.



Atiku’s resolved to dump the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) is coming after weeks of consultations with his associates across the country.

Last week, Atiku visited a number of governors across the states of the federation in what he called “consultations on his next role in the emerging political dispensation.”

During the extensive consultations, Atiku also met with his associates in the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), especially in the north east, who urged him to move to the APC.

At the last PDP convention in Abuja, Atiku led the seven PDP governors and other aggrieved members of the party to form the New PDP, which later fused with the APC. Five of the governors – Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, Rabi’u Kwankwaso (Kano), Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto), Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) and Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State – have since defected to the APC. Only governors Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and his Jigawa State counterpart Sule Lamido stayed back in the PDP.

This is the second time Atiku is defecting from the PDP to the opposition party. During his running battles with former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku had pitched his tent with the defunct Action Congress (AC) and emerged its presidential flag bearer in 2007 where he lost to the late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua.

He returned to the PDP and became the northern consensus candidate in an arrangement co-ordinated by some northern elite and again lost to the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan at the PDP presidential primaries for the 2011 elections.

When his loyalists last year formed the PDM, speculations were rife that he would move to the new party, but he maintained that he remained a loyal member of the PDP.

In the heat of the PDP crisis and a gale of defections from the ruling party to APC, some prominent leaders of the opposition party led by former head of state, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and former governor of Lagos State and APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, visited Atiku and appealed to him to join their party. Atiku then promised to consider their request and to respond at the appropriate time.

He concluded the consultations on Friday with political associates and stakeholders in the north-east geo-political zone in Bauchi State.

At the event held in Zaranda Hotel in Bauchi, the stakeholders rejected his continued stay in the PDP and pleaded with him to declare for the APC as soon as possible.