Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, who resigned his membership of the all Progressives Congress (APC) alleging ill-treatment and lack of focus by the leadership of the party may be against a bulwark as he prepares to return to his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). His resignation has been long in coming and may open up a floodgate of defection from the ruling party.

Though, he is yet to make the announcement, but insiders said Atiku may return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he is likely to fly the Presidential flag of the party in the 2019 election. Since the Supreme Court affirmed the Ahmed Makarfi faction as the true leadership of the PDP, a judgment that brought stability to the factionalised opposition party, some concerned elders in the PDP had been wooing Atiku to return to the fold. The exit of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, a bitter political foe of Atiku may have cleared the path for the former Vice President.

However, our correspondent reports that Atiku may not get a smooth sail within the PDP as many of the party faithful are still angry at the manner he left the party in February 2014. His departure left the PDP weaker and made the APC stronger as many of his loyalists also left with him. But a senior PDP member who pleaded not to be named said Atiku would be resisted by a section of the PDP loyalists whom he said ‘can no longer trust the man from Adamawa’.

Below is full statement of his resignation letter titled: “Statement of resignation of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar (Waziri Adamawa) Vice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007 from the All Progressives Congress,”

“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 factionalization 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”.