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Nigerians are still reacting to the impending demise of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

This comes after the party’s mainstays, including former Senate President David Mark, former Vice President Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and other former governors, left.

The PDP members, led by Atiku Abubakar, urged all well-meaning party members and other patriotic Nigerians to join the coalition at a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday.

Former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, former Senate President David Mark, and other prominent PDP figures are among the main figures that Atiku is pushing out of the party.

Following a meeting of the party’s Concerned Leaders on Tuesday, their decision to disband the main opposition party was announced, although it had been rumored for some time.

Top opposition leaders met behind closed doors to discuss the ongoing crisis impacting the main opposition party and the future, according to a previous ZINGTIE article.

Just 24 hours after the party’s National Executive Council, NEC, told Nigerians that all of the problems holding the party back had been resolved, the party’s Concerned Leaders met to address the unsettling state of the organization.

Following Monday’s PDP NEC meeting, interim National Chairman Umar Damagum announced that Samuel Anyanwu had been confirmed as the party’s national secretary by the NEC.

He stated that Anyanwu’s confirmation was among the important decisions made during the NEC meeting, which is still the party’s highest decision-making body.

Several party heavyweights who attended the NEC meeting, including former Senate Presidents Bukola Saraki and Adolphus Wabara as well as former Board of Technology chief Bode George, expressed confidence that the party had at last reclaimed itself.

Former Governors Aminu Tambuwal (Sokoto), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), and Sam Egwu (Ebonyi), among with other high-ranking officials, have also left the PDP with Atiku Abubakar.

Since Atiku’s victory over the former Rivers State governor in the 2023 presidential primary, the PDP has remained divided.

In order to help Bola Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), win the presidency while still in the PDP, Wike assembled a group of five governors, known as the G-5, following the primary election.

Atiku faced criticism for running in the 2023 election, which was supposed to be the South’s turn to produce the next president after an eight-year Northern reign, according to the gentleman’s agreement.

The PDP has never been the same since Dr. Iyorchia Ayu left as its National Chairman and the party lost the most recent presidential election.

During Olusegun Obasanjo’s presidency, Atiku, a businessman, was Nigeria’s vice president from 1999 until 2007.

Prior to then, he unsuccessfully sought the governorship of Adamawa State in 1990 and 1996 before winning in 1998.

However, he was chosen as Olusegun Obasanjo’s running mate in the 1999 presidential election and was re-elected in 2003 before taking office.

Since the PDP’s founding, Atiku has been a leader and member. He has run for president several times, including in the most recent two general elections.

However, on Tuesday, the former vice president and other prominent members of the party, including former Senate President David Mark, former Jigawa State Governor Sule Lamido, and other PDP stalwarts, left the party.

Political analyst Dr. Sani Abubakar told ZINGTIE that it was long overdue for the politicians to quit the party for the Minister of the Federal Capital, or FCT, who he accused of being the cause of the issue. He also discussed what Atiku’s decision to dump the PDP portends for the party.

“I’ll be very frank with you. I think the problem prevalent in the Nigerian political system today, to the best of my knowledge, arose because the PDP failed in its responsibility as a credible opposition party,” he said.

“If the PDP had been able to live up to expectations the same way the APC opposed them when they were in government, the story of the Nigerian political landscape would have been entirely different.

“But the PDP has so far been led by people who have no credibility, who are in the afternoon, PDP and at night APC, for example, the FCT minister and so many of them.

“That is why you see many of them defecting into the APC, forgetting that even the APC is in government today because of the credible viable opposition they gave to the people to clinch power. It provided an alternative for Nigerians.

“Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and former Senate President David Mark and others leaving the PDP, I think to me it is even too late. The PDP is already dead.

“This is because of the way, you know, the FCT Minister has hijacked the party. He has hijacked the party and it appears that he is untouchable.

“Just look at the issue of the National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu. After everything he still stays as the National secretary.

“So, the coast is clear for the APC to still use the PDP as a vehicle. They will use them to do their bidding.

“For us to have a party that wants to give the APC a challenge, not just in the coming election, but over the years as a viable opposition party, the former Vice President and the others have to move out of the party.

“I hope they would show Nigerians that they have an ideology, principle and some kind of movement that they are promoting, not just that they are moving into another party, as another position to challenge the APC, just because they want to clinch power. That’s going to backfire.

“I think they should have moved out a long time ago. They should have identified who identified PDP members who are PDP in the afternoon, APC in the night, and flush them out.

“Set up a disciplinary committee and flush them out. The behavior of certain members of the PDP at the moment is undemocratic, people like this former governor of Rivers State.

“You are in PDP, and you are saying it openly that you will support the candidates that belong to another party. You support the candidate that belongs to another party to sabotage your own party,” he added.

Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a former spokesperson for the now-defunct New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP), and an ally of Atiku Abubakar, also provided commentary on the topic. He clarified that the former vice president has not left the PDP but is bringing the party into the coalition.

“Atiku and other PDP heavyweights apart from Senator David Mark have not resigned from PDP but rather want to, as PDP members, collapse into ADC,” he said.

“Atiku is the brain box of PDP and will never dump the party if we critically consider the history of the party.

“The fact remains that Wike and his devilish cohorts have destroyed the soul of the party and any serious party member who is serious about rescuing the nation from Tinubu’s maladministration and are affected by the sorry state of our country at the moment can’t continue to tolerate the madness currently going on in PDP.

“To me, what Atiku and key elders of the party have resolved to do is to collapse the mainstream of PDP into a better platform through which their can realize their political mission and vision for Nigeria

“In this regard, I must commend and congratulate Atiku and others for this wise and strategic step to shame Wike and his misguided followers who thought that by destroying the party they will succeed in denying some of the party faithful the platform to arrest the drive to collapse Nigeria by Tinubu’s administration,” Eze stated.

Atiku, meanwhile, is seen in Nigeria as a repeated presidential candidate.

Atiku ran in six primary contests prior to the 2023 presidential election.

According to ZINGTIE, Atiku has been trying unsuccessfully to win the presidency since 1993.

In the 2023 PDP Presidential primary, he faced and defeated leading candidates, including Nyesom Wike, the governor of Rivers state; Bukola Saraki, the former president of the Senate; and Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, the governor of Sokoto state.

Moshood Abiola defeated him in the Social Democratic Party’s (SDP) presidential primary.

In the 2007 presidential election, the former vice president was the Action Congress’s nominee for president, finishing third behind Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP and Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP.

In the 2011 presidential election, he ran in the People’s Democratic Party’s presidential primary but lost to incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

He joined the APC, a coalition political party, in 2014 and unsuccessfully challenged Muhammadu Buhari in the primary election.

He rejoined the PDP in 2017 and ran for president in the 2019 election, however he lost to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari once more.

As previously stated, he ran as the PDP’s candidate for president in 2023 but lost to President Bola Tinubu.

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