President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday sympathized with the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Chief John Odigie-Oyegun in mockery of the exit of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, from the ruling party.
At the inauguration of a 30-member panel to renegotiate the national minimum wage for workers at the Council Chambers of the Presidential Villa, Buhari said to Odigie-Oyegun: “Accept my sympathy for losing a senior member of your party” in an apparent reference to Atiku who last week announced his resignation from the APC.
Although Buhari did not mention Atiku’s name, the former vice president is the latest senior member of the APC to have dumped the party. Atiku last week specifically announced that he was dumping the party for its failure to fulfil its promises to Nigerians.
Also, during a photo session with members of the panel shortly after the inauguration, President Buhari threw another banter, this time at the governor of Osun State, Rauf Aregbesola.
He jokingly asked the governor why he did not dress like his Kebbi State counterpart, Atiku Bagudu. Buhari pointed to the armed forces remembrance emblem on the chest of Bagudu which was missing on Aregbesola’s dress.
Atiku was one of those who contested the party’s presidential ticket ahead of the 2015 general elections and lost to Buhari.
His letter of resignation from APC dated October 18, 2017, read in part: “I wish to inform you of my decision to resign my membership of the APC in this ward with effect from the date of this letter.
“I’m resigning from a party we formed and worked so hard, with fellow compatriots across the country, to place in government.
“I’m unable to reconcile myself with the dismal performance of the party in government, especially in relation to the continued polarisation of our people along ethnic and religious lines, which is threatening our unity more than any other time in the recent past, and the unbearable hardship that our people are currently undergoing.”
Meanwhile, some senators elected on the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) platform have started reaching out to their colleagues in the APC to boost Atiku’s defection to the PDP.
It was learnt that the bid to bring APC senators to the PDP, which is being coordinated by a lawmaker from a South-South geo-political zone, has started generating issues in the upper chamber.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Sam Anyanwu (PDP, Imo State), told The Guardian yesterday that there was nothing wrong in the move to get the APC senators into PDP. He said more people, including governors, former governors and ministers would soon defect to the PDP.
Anyanwu declared that it was the natural right of any senator to move to wherever he wants. “You know that in party politics, these are senators, you can’t dictate for them where they will go.”
According to him, there is no need to even persuade the senators to change party in view of the fact that the APC has not done well. “It is their right to move to any party they wish just like people have been defecting to APC,” he noted.
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