Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has tendered his
resignation from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party citing
maltreatment by the party and failure of the party to live up to the
expectation of Nigerian youth.
Atiku’s resignation signals his readiness to move to the opposition
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) where he is expected to become the party’s
flagbearer for the 2019 presidential election.
Below is resignation statement of Atiku:
Statement of resignation of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar (Waziri Adamawa)
Vice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007 from the All Progressives Congress
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.
Only last year, a governor produced by the party wrote a secret memorandum
to the president which ended up being leaked. In that memo, he admitted
that the All Progressives Congress had “not only failed to manage
expectations of a populace that expected overnight ‘change’ but has failed
to deliver even mundane matters of governance.”
Of the party itself, that same governor said “Mr. President, Sir Your
relationship with the national leadership of the party, both the formal
(NWC) and informal (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa
Kwankwaso), and former Governors of ANPP, PDP (that joined us) and ACN, is
perceived by most observers to be at best frosty. Many of them are
aggrieved due to what they consider a total absence of consultations with
them on your part and those you have assigned such duties.”
Since that memorandum was written up until today, nothing has been done to
reverse the treatment meted out to those of us invited to join the All
Progressives Congress on the strength of a promise that has proven to be
false. If anything, those behaviors have actually worsened.
But more importantly, the party we put in place has failed and continues
to fail our people, especially our young people. How can we have a federal
cabinet without even one single youth?
A party that does not take the youth into account is a dying party. The
future belongs to young people.
I admit that I and others who accepted the invitation to join the APC were
eager to make positive changes for our country that we fell for a mirage.
Can you blame us for wanting to put a speedy end to the sufferings of the
masses of our people?
Be that as it may be, after due consultation with my God, my family, my
supporters and the Nigerian people whom I meet in all walks of life, I,
Atiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa, hereby tender my resignation from the All
Progressives Congress while I take time to ponder my future.
May God bless you and may God bless Nigeria.
Atiku Abubakar
Waziri Adamawa