- Begging him was no big deal, exit of no consequence – APC
- Ex-VP says ‘a president who couldn’t grow his private business can’t grow Nigeria’s economy’
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar may have again stirred the hornet’s nest with his disclosure that the leaders of the All Progressives Congress begged him to join the party in 2013.
Atiku, in an exclusive interview with The Point, said that the APC leaders came to his house to persuade him to join the fold when the party was about to be formed in 2013.
He dismissed insinuations that he was playing political harlotry by jumping from one party to another, at the slightest provocation.
The former VP said leaders of the APC begged him to join the party, owing to the fact that his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, was factionalised at the period.
I never left the PDP. I was pushed out. I did not go looking to join the APC. It was the APC that came to me at my house on December 19, 2013, appealing to me to join their party because my party, the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) was factionalised at that time
According to him, he never contemplated leaving the PDP, but was pushed out of the party by prevailing circumstances.
Atiku had dumped the APC in December last year and is back again in the PDP.
He said, “I never left the PDP. I was pushed out. I did not go looking to join the APC. It was the APC that came to me at my house on December 19, 2013, appealing to me to join their party because my party, the PDP (Peoples Democratic Party) was factionalised at that time.
“I am one of the founding fathers of the PDP. I have absolutely no reason to contemplate leaving the PDP as those challenges, which caused it to be factionalised, have now been fully resolved.”
Atiku also described as untrue, speculations that he was decamping to the resuscitated Social Democratic Party, which is now being touted as the Third Force, aimed at displacing the ruling APC in the 2019 presidential elections.
Reacting to the SDP rumour, Atiku, who is Waziri Adamawa, said, “The SDP? This is news to me. Yes, I was a member of the Social Democratic Party, along with Chief MKO Abiola, the late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and many other patriots.
“As a party, we worked with Chief Abiola and helped him to win the June 12, 1993 presidential election. However, that party was made defunct by the military on the 17th of November 1993. I have no plans whatsoever to join any party known as the SDP.”
He also hit hard on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, implying that the President does not have what it takes to create wealth for the country or improve on the welfare of its citizens.
He stressed that a leader, who had not been successful in his private business, could not create wealth for the country, noting that the quality of leadership currently being experienced was a reflection of the inadequacy of the team leader.
“For now, let me just say that I strongly believe that a man who has no hair cannot lend you a comb. It is wishful thinking to expect a man who is unable to create wealth in his private business to create wealth for the public,” he said.
Atiku, who said he had yet to declare his intention to run for President formally, however, noted, “I have been creating jobs in the private sector for over 30 years. Modesty is my nature and is the tradition with which I was brought up… Personally, the employees in my firms number in tens of thousands. There is no state in Nigeria that is not represented on our payroll.”
He spoke extensively on his plans to transform the nation, if voted in as president.
He said, “In essence, my first action would be to remove the impediments that militate against job creation. The budgeting process will be disrupted. No more would recurrent expenditure attract the lion’s share. I will reverse this.
“We will have a budget heavy on capital expenditure. Roads will be built in every state. Mass housing schemes will pop up in every local government area. Railways will be extended to every state capital. Rivers will be dredged to open up the hinterlands of the North.
“Licence will be given to state governments to begin immediate exploitation of resources in their jurisdiction. I will turn Nigeria into a massive construction project. I will not be doing this for fun. The purpose would be to get Nigerians working again. If our youths are busy building roads, mass housing, power stations, dams and schools, they will not have time to be Boko Haram, kidnappers and militants.”
The former VP also condemned the deployment of over 150,000 policemen as guards for Very Important Personalities, at a time the country is under-policed and the crime level is on the high side, saying it was an anomaly that should be urgently addressed.
APC REPLIES ATIKU
But the APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, said although he was not privy to what transpired between Atiku and the leaders of the APC in 2013, begging a citizen of the calibre of the former vice president to join the party was no big deal.
Abdullahi said that the situation at that time must have warranted the APC leaders to persuade Atiku to be part of the then burgeoning political party.
The APC spokesman, however, said Atiku’s exit from the APC would not have any negative effect on the ruling party’s electoral fortunes in the 2019 polls.
He noted that although the ruling party was at first worried by Atiku’s decision to leave its fold due to the fear of the likely bandwagon effect of such a development, the APC had since moved on as none of the party’s elected political office holders had taken any decision to jump ship along with the former vice president.
He said, “I think I don’t know at this level. Those are the things I was not privy to, but what did he mean? Anybody can beg anybody for favour. The former Vice President Atiku is an important citizen. So, anybody can beg anybody to come and help on a particular issue. So, there is nothing extraordinary about it; there is nothing to deny or affirm in that. If you are looking for people that will help in certain situations, definitely Atiku is one of them. So, there is nothing extraordinary about that.
“To lose someone that is that important is quite significant, but when he was leaving, we were worried about seeing the number of people that would follow him, like senators, governors, and others. But since he did, how many people did you see with him? Of course, we cannot take it away from him that he is important, and we were concerned, but I can tell you that that will not affect us in the coming polls.”
But in a swift response to the claim by the former vice president that he was begged to join the APC in 2013, an aide of the National Chairman of the ruling party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said Atiku lied.
The aide, who is also an APC leader in Edo State, Hon. Soni Idahagbon, dismissed Atiku as “a sheep without a shepherd.”
He noted that President Buhari was the central figure at the time the party was being formed, and that Atiku only came along.
Idahagbon added that “Atiku Abubakar lost his political value, right from the time he fought his boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and he has yet to recover from it.”
He said the ex-VP’s political value further depreciated when he left the PDP for the ACN (defunct Action Congress of Nigeria), then later to the PDP and back to the APC during the merger.
Idahagbon said, “Atiku Abubakar has since lost his political value in this country. His political misfortune started from the time he fought Olusegun Obasanjo.
“The APC presidential ticket, as far as we know, had always been built around the personality of Muhammadu Buhari right from the start, because Nigerians were tired of the corruption, economic recklessness and insecurity that characterised the PDP era, and they believed Buhari was experienced enough to save the day.
“And by the grace of God, President Buhari has done a lot to transform the country, despite a few challenges, which, I am sure, he will eventually handle.”
Efforts by our correspondent to speak with the APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, on Atiku’s claims proved
abortive.
Abdullahi did not pick calls made to his mobile phone. He also did not reply text messages sent to him as of press time.
Editor’s note: Read the full interview with Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on pages 20 and 21
