From Tom Garba, Yola
One of the staunch loyalists of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar who is the director of Atiku Support Group, Mr Mark Wosi, has alleged that “high impunity” has become the order of the day in the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), which has damaged the electoral appeal of the party before millions of Nigerians today.
Consequently, Wosi disclosed that plans were under way by millions of Atiku loyalists like himself to exit the APC and decamp into the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 General Elections.
Wosi made these disclosures during a media chat with journalists in his Yola office on Wednesday.
Insisting that the APC is ruling with a high sense of impunity, Wosi said APC got the support of every stakeholders of the party to be what it was today even as he submitted that the party had failed to deliver its promises of change made to Nigerians in 2015 and had rather ended up dashing the hopes of millions of people in the country.
According to him, while there were other reasons for the Atiku loyalists’ planned movement into the PDP, topmost of these is the impunity, stressing that as Atiku’s political followers they could no longer bear the injustice going on in the ruling party.
Mark disclosed that the catalyst for the planned defection to the PDP was “the clear impunity shown by the Adamawa state party officials of APC when the local government chairman of the party in Jada died and the constitution clearly stated that the vice chairman should automatic take over but they asked a ward chairman to became the chairman against the party Constitution.”
“It is better for us to be in the opposition side. The impunity happening in the ruling party is one of our major causes of our shift. Unfortunately APC is becoming something else not the party that we have all supported well to win the last election,” Wosi said.
However, Wosi said the Atiku loyalists’ decision to decamp to PDP must not be construed as reflective of the mind of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
Nevertheless, Wosi stressed that plans were in top gear for all members of Atiku Support Group nationwide to decamp to PDP and thereafter mount pressure on Atiku to also decamp to the opposition party.
He also said that they have concluded arrangements to call on Atiku to make a formal declaration to run for President in 2019.
It would be recalled that Atiku Abubakar was conspicuously absent from the NEC meeting of the APC held at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja earlier this week. Although other chieftains of the APC like Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu were at the NEC meeting, it remains unclear if Atiku’s absence was deliberate or inadvertent. It is also unclear if Atiku was invited to the NEC meeting at all.
Reacting to the accusations laid against the APC government by Wosi, Alhaji Ahmad Lawan, the organising secretary of the party in Adamawa, said Wosi cannot talk of injustice and impunity in the APC because he should be aware that most of the commissioners and aides to the state governor were allegedly picked from Atiku’s camp.
Lawan said: “Where is impunity in APC when the commissioner of health is from Atiku’s camp? Tell me where is injustice when commissioner of land and survey, commissioner of commerce and industry are all Atiku loyalists? Will you tell me that the chief press secretary to the governor is not an Atiku supporter? Let me even say more Wosi is just displaying their known political character to Nigerians.
“The problem of Atiku and any of his supporters is a lack of strong political principles and ideology, a reason why they find themselves galloping from one party to another.The politics of Atiku and his supporters is the politics of going from one party to another.”
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