Former vice president and presidential candidate under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has revealed that he was “literally compelled” to join the All Progressive Congress (APC) in 2014 when the party was birthed via a strong coalition merger.
Atiku, who is now an ADC Chieftain, revealed this while he gave his speech at the African Democratic Congress (ADC) convention held at the Rainbow Evennt Centre in Abuja yesterday, stressing that the then-chieftains of the newly-formed merger forced him to make a decision that was never his, and enabling his name be etched as one of the founding members of the party.
“I remember when the APC was being formed, the entire political leadership in this country came to my house”, ENigeria Newspaper gathered the former president say at the convention.
“They said, ‘If you don’t come into the APC, this is not going to be possible.’ They literally compelled me to join the APC. Only for us to enter the APC, our economy is gone, our sovereignty is gone, our security is gone, our education is gone, and our infrastructure is gone. The healthcare is gone”, Atiku added.
He, however, urged all members present to challenge the current government and oust it out of power.
“Now, we must rise and make sure that there is change, genuine change, a serious change to rectify all these challenges that are happening in the country. I am in this game. We are going to win.”
Atiku also assured that Joash Amupitan, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, would face consequences for allegedly undermining Nigerian democracy.
“Let the chairman know we are not going to let him get away with his illegalities. We will not. And I hope we will have your support and cooperation to make sure we return to true democracy, to true development in all aspects of human endeavour”, he said.
Atiku to APC in 2014
Recall that on 2 February 2014, Atiku Abubakar, alongside 11 senators, left the Peoples Democratic Party and became a founding member All Progressives Congress, with the ambition of contesting for the presidency ahead of the 2015 presidential election. Earlier, he had left the PDP but rejoined and sought to be the party’s candidate in the 2011 elections, won by Goodluck Jonathan.
Recall that Atiku had reiterated his stance on the formation of APC about two months in Abuja at an opposition stakeholder meeting convened to deliberate on reforms to the new Electoral Act and the state of Nigeria’s democracy.
“We were without caution, you see, we did this exercise in 2014. We came together and formed APC because we felt democracy was faulty in 2014. Only for us to end up in the same situation we found ourselves in 2014, even worse. In 2014, the major challenge was insecurity here and there, economy and so on and so forth. Now it is even worse than what we fought in 2014″, he had said.
