- The ruling party has reacted to Atiku Abubakar's exit from party
- The party said they wished the former vice president goodluck
- They however added that he is yet to submit his resignation to the party
The All Progressives Congress (APC) party has bade former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, farewell as he announced his departure from the ruling party.
The party said they wished Atiku good luck and hold no grudges whatsoever as the former vice president exit party.
They however said the party is yet to receive any formal letter notifying them of Atiku's resignation from the party.
The national publicity secretary of the party, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, while reacting to the news of Atiku decamping from APC said: “Politics is about interest, we have not seen any formal notification to that effect but base on what we have seen in the social media we can say all together is surprising but for us politics is all about interest.
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“So, if the former vice president feels that his interest is better served elsewhere, we can always wish him goodluck. For us, the task of building a political party is not a day’s job; its marathon and it takes many years and we will continue to improve on our system until we are able to get the kind of party that we want to really, really build.
“It takes many years to build a strong political party. In a new party, you find some people are happy, some people are not so happy and everybody would have to take their decisions at some point. So, we don’t have anything to say rather than to wish the former vice president goodluck.”
The Niger state chapter of APC was however less gracious in their reaction to Atiku's exit.
The party, in a series of tweet, referred to the vice presidents and others who decamped from the party as opportunists.
The party tweeted: “In politics, there is freedom of choosing which ever party you want to belong to, the only thing wrong with APC today is some PDP elements in it. Atiku is the leader of those elements, to turn around and say APC has failed Nigerians is the highest form of hypocrisy.
“APC met a messed up Nigeria which Atiku and his likes started destroying since 1999. APC has made significant improvements in trying to stire the country out of that mess. If anybody has the right to say APC has failed, that person should certainly not be Atiku
“APC has a long way to go. We are optimistic with the leadership qualities and principle of leaders like President Buhari, VP Osinbajo and National Leader Bola Ahmed Tinubu, we are on the right course.
“This has exposed to the fact that Atiku didn’t contribute to APC’s Success in the 2015 election because of Nigeria and wellbeing of Nigerians but because of his personal gain.
"APC has a lot to do in the area of rewarding party loyalists. Most especially genuine loyalists that have been with the party since day one. Atiku has no right to complain about that. His cronies has been appointed in various positions
“APC also need to put its act together and stop accepting PDP members that have questionable characters. We need a viable opposition to prosper as a country, not accept every Tom and Harry that wants to decamp to APC."
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Meanwhile, Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state has a message for the just-defected Atiku Abubakar and that is that he can never stand as a threat to President Muhammadu Buhari in any future election in Nigeria.
The governor added that in 2014, he told Atiku in Dubai that Buhari was the most popular northerner that can become president and no other person from the region can beat him in an election.
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Source: Naija.ng