Atiku won’t return to PDP, says spokesman

Former Vice President and All Progressives Party Congress (APC) presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar, has said that there is nothing in his former party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that will make him return to the fold. Speaking through his media aide, Garba Shehu, Atiku debunked insinuations that he will return to PDP following overtures by leaders of his former party. Shehu, who spoke to Sunday Independent last night, described media reports on Atiku’s possible return to PDP as “untrue and unfounded “. Also in his own reaction, elder statesman and a former governor of Old Kaduna State in the defunct Second Republic, Lawal Kaita, told Sunday Independent that the former Vice President has nothing to gain in the PDP by leaving his current party, APC. Kaita, a very close political ally of Atiku and APC chieftain, in an exclusive interview with Sunday Independent on Saturday evening from his Katsina State country home, maintained that it was unthinkable for Atiku, who was a presidential aspirant in the just-concluded APC presidential primary in Lagos, to return again to the PDP, a party he had rejected. Shehu and Kaita’s declaration, came on the heels of news reports in the media on Saturday, in the which the PDP National Secretary, Prof Wale Oladipo, was quoted to have said at a news conference last Friday at lle-Ife, Osun State, that the PDP has begun moves to bring back aggrieved former party members like Atiku and Kano State governor, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Oladipo was quoted thus: “The PDP has begun moves to bring back some of our former chieftains who are now in the APC.
“The PDP Reconciliation Committee set up by the National Working Committee will meet with former members for the purpose of bringing them back before the next general elections”. Kaita however disagreed with the PDP scribe, saying that though Atiku Abubakar is currently “in Dubai”, he would say categorically that the former Vice President was through with PDP. He also denied being in the picture of alleged plans by the PDP Reconciliation Committee to use him to lure Atiku back to the PDP fold.
As for Kwakwanso, the former old Kaduna State governor told Sunday Independent that he wouldn’t speak for him. His words: “Well, l can assure you that l’m constantly in touch with the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.
“He is in Dubai right now as l am speaking to you. He will not come back to the PDP again because he has nothing to gain in the party. “Well, may be governor Rabiu Kwankwaso. I can’t speak for him. But for Atiku, no no no. He’s not coming back there again (PDP).
*Daily Independent