Ex-Rep Urges Atiku To Step Down For Southern Candidate

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) crisis has been ascribed by former House of Representatives member Tajudeen Yusuf to a number of reasons, including some party officials’ inability to put the party’s unity ahead of their own political aspirations.

Yusuf thinks it is time for former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to step down and let the PDP go back to its original zoning model, which he claims would foster unity within the party. Abubakar ran as the party’s presidential candidate in the last two election cycles.

Yusuf stated, “If I have my way, I will advise former Vice President Atiku, leave PDP ticket, let it go to the South even if we don’t win presidential election, we would have been seen as going back to our original modus operandi where part positions are zoned.”

Look at the South-South and the South-East which have been reasonably the bedrock of the PDP, you just come and pick a ticket, people would lose hope because everyone wants to reach their professional zenith.

If they now realize that because of the number that comes from one particular section in primary election they cannot get the ticket, they become frustrated.

Since the general election in 2023, the former ruling party has been dealing with internal issues, and a number of its leading members, including governors and members of the National Assembly, have defected to the current All Progressives Congress (APC)

Delta State Governor Sheriff Oborevwori, his deputy Monday Onyeme, his predecessor Ifeanyi Okowa, and other prominent PDP members in the state switched to the APC on Wednesday, making them the most recent to leave the party.

Yusuf, who represented the Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, described the crisis in the PDP as self-inflicted. He accused the party’s governors of deliberately allowing the situation to persist in order to justify their defection to other political platforms.