Unease in APC, PDP over Atiku

LAST week’s defection of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is already bearing fruits across party lines. While the All Progressives Congress (APC), which he left after barely four years of joining the party from the PDP, is still divided over how best to approach his sudden exit, the PDP, which he moved into last week, is faced with fresh anxieties over looming struggle for its presidential ticket.

Pundits say it will not be out of place to say both parties are currently on edge following Atiku’s defection. Not a few are also of the opinion that the decision of the former Vice President to dump the ruling party and pitch his tent with the opposition party at a time like this will definitely heat up the political landscape and his coming will further strengthen the troubled PDP, especially in the north and the southeast, where he is known to enjoy appreciable followership.

While the rumour mill has been agog for a while before now about the possibility of Atiku and his political family dumping the APC and moving back to the PDP, not many people thought the Adamawa-born politician will make the move so quickly. Thus, his defection last week caught many of the chieftains of both APC and PDP unawares.

General Secretary of the Voters’ Right Agenda (VRA), Dr. Paul Labi-Osborne, while speaking on the defection and its implication, said the move is definitely one of the factors that will determine how the 2019 presidential election will play out. According to him, Atiku’s decision to dump the ruling APC will go a long way in influencing how the struggle for the party’s presidential ticket will play out.

“It will be fool-hardy for anybody to say Atiku’s defection will have no effect on the APC. To say the least, his leaving the party will affect the race for the presidential ticket of the party. For the contender or contenders, that is one serious headache less. If he had stayed in the party, he would have sought the ticket and he is no push-over.

“So, I don’t need anybody to tell me that somebody or some people are very happy that he left as this will make their quest for the ticket easier. Don’t forget that Atiku had not left anybody in doubt of his readiness to contest the presidency. His ambition and the brazen manner in which some of his supporters within the party have been going about it has been unsettling some people and structures within the ruling party.

“We were all here when a serving minister publicly said she will work for the former Vice President against her current principal, President Muhammadu Buhari, should the two seek the presidency in 2019. And she is not the only serving federal government functionary who feels that way. Of course, this is something Buhari’s men are aware of. Such situations have been responsible for the tension that has enveloped the ruling party for a while now,” Labi-Osborne said.

Speaking further, the pro-democracy activist also warned the opposition PDP to be ready to curtail the effects of Atiku’s coming into the party. According to him, while the PDP will no doubt benefit immensely from Atiku’s defection as the former Vice President, a known political mobiliser with political machineries spread across the country, and will help reenergise the party in some parts of the country, his presidential ambition will rock the boat and challenge many permutations.

“Atiku is, as I said, no political upstart. So, coming into the PDP with his presidential ambition already a public matter, the party must be ready to bend over backward to accommodate his political moves and manoeuvres. Failure to do this will see him rocking the boat and challenging current permutations. Given his capacity to win friends and loyalists easily, just and he makes enemies, the PDP will feel his presence immensely.

“And should there be a pre-conceived arrangement on how the presidential ticket of the PDP would be allotted in 2019, Atiku’s coming, except he is the beneficiary of such arrangement, will make nonsense of such arrangement. It is on the basis of all these that I say Atiku’s defection will go a long way in determining how 2019 will play out,” he added.

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