TheCable

Kassim Afegbua, a former commissioner for information in Edo state, says Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, should not be “trusted” with the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket ahead of the 2023 election. 

Afegbua, spokesperson of the Atiku Abubakar presidential campaign organisation in the 2019 election, was reacting to a comment made by Abubakar about the party’s presidential ticket.

After a visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Saturday, Abubakar had expressed confidence that he would win the PDP ticket.

In a statement issued on Sunday, Afegbua said the opposition party cannot “afford the mistake” of supporting Abubakar who “abandoned” the party in 2019 after he lost the presidential election.

Afegbua advised the former vice-president to drop his presidential ambition and support a younger aspirant from the southern part of the country.

“I read with dismay the statement credited to former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar where he boasted that he would always get the presidential ticket of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP,” the statement reads.

“At a time when the former Vice President should be working towards strengthening the structures of the party for more electoral victories, the only thing that bothers him is all about his selfish aspiration.

“It was only in 2019 that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar emerged as the candidate of the PDP at the PortHarcourt convention when it was decided by the Southern aspirants to allow an all-northern aspirants to contest the primary election. So the claim that “I will always get the ticket of the PDP”,  flies in the face of logic, fact and reality.”

“We cannot afford the mistake of 2019 when Alhaji Abubakar abandoned all his foot-soldiers and sought refuge in faraway Dubai. A true political General ought to secure his troops and return them to the barracks after the war to carry out critical assessment before knowing the next step.

“Rather than borrow a leaf from the Ukrainian President, Zelensky, who has been standing by his Ukrainian nationals, to the extent of carrying AK-47 to the battlefront to secure his country from Russian invasion, Alhaji Abubakar ran away to Dubai and exposed all of us to the threats and intimidation of the monstrous APC in 2019.

“Such a leader cannot be trusted with the responsibility of representing our aggregate interest in the struggle for 2023. No amount of closed-door meetings with former leaders can change the oscillation of the political pendulum in 2023.”

Afegbua said Abubakar is being deceived, adding that “no former president would support an Atiku presidency, at a time they all have spoken loudly about fielding younger President in 2023”.