Atiku, Kwankwaso Dismiss PDP’s Offer To Return

Attempts by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to commence the process of wooing back former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, from the All Progressives Congress (APC) has hit a brick wall as the duo said they are through with the PDP.

PDP’s national secretary, Prof. Wale Oladipo, recently said he was personally commencing moves that would bring both Atiku and Kwankwaso back to the party they left in August 2014 during the special convention of the party in Abuja.

Oladipo added further that it would be better for them to return to the party and allow President Goodluck Jonathan to complete his second term so that they can have the opportunity of taking a shot at the presidency in 2019.

The scribe of the party even hinted that Kwankwaso might regain control of the PDP structure in Kano State if he decides to return.

But in a swift reaction, Atiku’s spokesman, Mallam Garba Shehu, dismissed the story with a wave of hands, saying his principal had bade farewell to PDP and nothing would take him back to the party again.

The Kano State governor, while reacting to the offer, said attempt to woo him back to PDP is a confirmation and acknowledgement that the PDP is going to lose Kano in the 2015 general elections without his help.

The director of press to the governor, Baba Halilu Dantiye, who spoke on behalf of Kwankwaso, said asking the governor to abandon the APC and rejoin PDP signified a vote of no confidence on the Kano PDP leadership.

Kwankwaso, who is presently the APC Kano Central senatorial candidate and came second in the just-concluded APC presidential primaries, said he has never contemplated abandoning the APC because of the platform it gave him to render service to his people.

It would be recalled that former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and some governors had walked out of the PDP convention at the Eagle Square in Abuja.

Atiku was the first to walk out alongside Governors Sule Lamido and Kwankwaso, followed later by delegates from Kwara, Adamawa, Niger, Sokoto and Rivers who converged at the Yar’Adua Centre for a meeting that later resulted in them embracing the APC.

Credit: Leadership