Atiku Will Return, PDP Says

The PDP said it would welcome back the former vice president.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has stated that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who left the party to join the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, on Sunday, would characteristically return to the party.
The Deputy National Chairman of the PDP, Uche Secondus, made the disclosure on Tuesday while giving a brief remark at the opening ceremony of a consultative workshop for Women in the Media, organised by the National Woman leader of the PDP, Kema Chikwe at the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja.
“I can tell you that they will go and come back and we are waiting for Atiku to go on this voyage and come back. He has done it before, this is not the first time and we will welcome him back when he comes because APC cannot win election, they are not firmly rooted,’’ Mr. Secondus said.
Mr. Secondus was referring to Mr. Abubakar’s exit of the PDP prior to the 2007 elections. The former vice president contested the 2007 presidential election against the PDP, but returned to the party in 2009.
The party official said politicians continue to leave the party, only to return because it (PDP) has continued to remain one and strong.
“The good thing is that the PDP is so consistent and constant that when they leave, they go on a voyage and they come back and we receive them,” he said.
The former Vice President had stated in his letter announcing his resignation from the PDP, that despite being a Vice President and one of the founding fathers of the PDP, the party leadership had continued to sideline him. He also said the PDP had deviated from its principles.
Mr. Secondus told the gathering that he was confident the PDP would win the 2015 elections, because statistics has shown that the party has the strength and capacity to win.
“Our party is the strongest, others are struggling. APC is just starting registration, something we did 13 years ago. It just started and cannot meet us. What APC is doing is party gymnastic,” he said.
Mr. Secondus commended Mrs. Chikwe for organising the workshop. He also urged the women politicians present to aspire to any office in the land under the platform of the party. He advised them to stop playing second fiddle to their male counter parts.
The National Woman leader, earlier in her welcome address, urged the women to continue to mobilise support for the party in the run up to the 2015 elections.
“PDP remains the only option to sustain Nigeria’s democracy, it was PDP yesterday, other parties have changed names and formed alliances over 3-4 times since 1998, nobody seems to understand what they want as they appear to have no defined goal and no defined policy, what is uppermost in their minds is how to be in power and do business with Nigeria’s oil,” she said.
The spokesperson of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, who also spoke at the event, said that the media has not been able to eliminate the negative gender stereotypes that mitigate the progress of Nigerian woman and her quests for greater participation in politics.
“A sizeable section of the media still projects women largely as weak and objects of sexual fantasy, incapable of handling hard, complicated and serious public responsibilities,” he said.
Mr. Metuh said the PDP has a robust policy that promotes the participation of women not just in politics but governance as well.