Press Release
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 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 behaviours
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)
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