(Full letter)
Former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar, has resigned from the All Progressives Congress.
Abubakar confirmed this in a statement
he personally signed on Friday.
He also gave reasons for quitting the
party.
However, he did not state which party
he intends to join, but said he is pondering on his political future.
The statement, titled: “Statement of
resignation of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar (Waziri Adamawa) Vice
President of Nigeria, 1999-2007 from the All Progressives Congress,”
reads in full…
“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”.
