Atiku has come under pressure to drop his 2027 ambition and support Southern Presidential Candidate.
NewsOnline Nigeria reports that a group under the auspices of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, 100 Percent, has called on the party’s 2023 Presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to drop his ambition of becoming the country’s number one citizen and throw his weight behind a southern candidate.
The group made this appeal following the defection of leaders, stakeholders and members to the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in the last couple of days, adding that the action would help save the party with confidence building on the part of the people.
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The group’s national coordinator, Dennis Shima, while addressing journalists in Abuja on Friday, took a swipe at Atiku Abubakar, blaming him for laying the foundation of the crisis, the trauma and woes the PDP was facing at the moment, leading to the mass exodus of party members, and being the mastermind of those who sabotaged former President Goodluck Jonathan when he led five governors to defect to the APC.
“At this critical turning point in our democratic history, it is imperative to call on all and sundry within PDP to support a southern presidential candidate to complete eight years in the presidency after eight years of former President Buhari from 2015 to 2023.
“Southern Nigeria has credible, young presidential materials that can match the incumbent President Bola Tinubu rather than recycling the old brigade that continues to dominate the political scene.
“It is worthy of note that most of the people who are agitating for a Northern Presidential candidate of PDP are protagonists of Atiku Abubakar, who unfortunately forgot to mention how magnanimous PDP has been to him after he and others in the North orchestrated the defeat of PDP in 2015,” Shima said.
According to him, PDP would have been 27 years in the presidency of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic if not for the activities of New-PDP, a fractional PDP mainstream group, which joined forces against the PDP presidential candidate in 2015.
Shima said the same scenario repeated itself in 2023 with a group of five governors led by former Governor Nyesom Wike who is now FCT Minister under the APC led Federal Government.
He recalled that Atiku would have remained in the APC-led Federal Government under President Buhari if President Buhari had fulfilled his promise to carry him alongside in his Change Mantra-minded federal government.
While advocating for young and vibrant politicians in the South to support becoming the PDP presidential ticket in 2027, Shima urged party members not to mind the role played by the Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde in the G5 headed by former Governor of Rivers State and the current FCT Minister, explaining that it was based on equity, fairness and justice.
