Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has tendered his
\nresignation from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) party citing
\nmaltreatment by the party and failure of the party to live up to the
\nexpectation of Nigerian youth.<\/p>\n
Atiku’s resignation signals his readiness to move to the opposition
\nPeople’s Democratic Party (PDP) where he is expected to become the party’s
\nflagbearer for the 2019 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Below is resignation statement of Atiku:<\/p>\n
Statement of resignation of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar (Waziri Adamawa)
\nVice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007 from the All Progressives Congress<\/p>\n
On the 19th of December, 2013, I received members of the All Progressives
\nCongress at my house in Abuja. They had come to appeal to me to join their
\nparty after my party, the Peoples Democratic Party, had become
\nfactionalized as a result of the special convention of August 31, 2013.<\/p>\n
The fractionalization of the Peoples Democratic Party on August 31, 2013,
\nhad left me in a situation where I was, with several other loyal party
\nmembers, in limbo, not knowing which of the parallel executives of the
\nparty was the legitimate leadership.<\/p>\n
It was under this cloud that members of the APC made the appeal to me to
\njoin their party, with the promise that the injustices and failure to
\nabide by its own constitution which had dogged the then PDP, would not be
\nreplicated in the APC and with the assurance that the vision other
\nfounding fathers and I had for the PDP could be actualized through the All
\nProgressives Congress.<\/p>\n
It was on the basis of this invitation and the assurances made to me that
\nI, being party-less at that time, due to the fractionalization of my
\nparty, accepted on February 2, 2014, the hand of fellowship given to me by
\nthe All Progressives Congress.<\/p>\n
On that day, I said “it is the struggle for democracy and
\nconstitutionalism and service to my country and my people that are driving
\nmy choice and my decision” to accept the invitation to join the All
\nProgressives Congress.<\/p>\n
Like you, I said that because I believed that we had finally seen the
\nbeginnings of the rebirth of the new Nigeria of our dreams which would
\nwork for all of us, old and young.<\/p>\n
However, events of the intervening years have shown that like any other
\nhuman and like many other Nigerians, I was fallible.<\/p>\n
While other parties have purged themselves of the arbitrariness and
\nunconstitutionality that led to fractionalization, the All Progressives
\nCongress has adopted those same practices and even gone beyond them to
\ninstitute a regime of a draconian clampdown on all forms of democracy
\nwithin the party and the government it produced.<\/p>\n
Only last year, a governor produced by the party wrote a secret memorandum
\nto the president which ended up being leaked. In that memo,\u00a0 he admitted
\nthat the All Progressives Congress had “not only failed to manage
\nexpectations of a populace that expected overnight \u2018change\u2019 but has failed
\nto deliver even mundane matters of governance.”<\/p>\n
Of the party itself, that same governor said “Mr. President, Sir Your
\nrelationship with the national leadership of the party, both the formal
\n(NWC) and informal (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa
\nKwankwaso), and former Governors of ANPP, PDP (that joined us) and ACN, is
\nperceived by most observers to be at best frosty. Many of them are
\naggrieved due to what they consider a total absence of consultations with
\nthem on your part and those you have assigned such duties.”<\/p>\n
Since that memorandum was written up until today, nothing has been done to
\nreverse the treatment meted out to those of us invited to join the All
\nProgressives Congress on the strength of a promise that has proven to be
\nfalse. If anything, those behaviors have actually worsened.<\/p>\n
But more importantly, the party we put in place has failed and continues
\nto fail our people, especially our young people. How can we have a federal
\ncabinet without even one single youth?<\/p>\n
A party that does not take the youth into account is a dying party. The
\nfuture belongs to young people.<\/p>\n
I admit that I and others who accepted the invitation to join the APC were
\neager to make positive changes for our country that we fell for a mirage.
\nCan you blame us for wanting to put a speedy end to the sufferings of the
\nmasses of our people?<\/p>\n
Be that as it may be, after due consultation with my God, my family, my
\nsupporters and the Nigerian people whom I meet in all walks of life, I,
\nAtiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa, hereby tender my resignation from the All
\nProgressives Congress while I take time to ponder my future.<\/p>\n
May God bless you and may God bless Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Atiku Abubakar
\nWaziri Adamawa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56794,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n