A former Vice President and chieftain of the All progressives Congress, APC, Atiku Abubakar, has denied knowledge of the groups of politicians who announced their defection to the PDP from the APC.
Atiku said in a statement by his media office in Abuja that he remains a committed member of the APC and urged that the purported defections of these groups be discountenanced.
A total of 120 so-called pro-Atiku support groups on Tuesday defected from the APC to the PDP. They dumped the APC for the ruling PDP at an elaborate ceremony held at Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja.
However, in a reaction, Turaki Vanguard, the umbrella group of Mr. Atiku’s supporters said members of the 120 groups were not supporters of the former vice president. The National Publicity Secretary of Turaki Vanguard, Soji Bamidele, told journalists that the defectors were not Mr. Atiku’s loyalists as they claimed. “They are faceless groups, we don’t know them,” he said. Mr. Bamidele, who confirmed that Mr. Atiku was being wooed back into the party, said the former vice president “is not shifting ground and will never go back to the PDP”.
Mr. Atiku was a member of the PDP before decamping to the APC in 2014. He however failed to pick the presidential ticket of the party, losing to Muhammadu Buhari, who is flying the party’s ticket in the March 28 presidential election.
While the groups were being received at the Yar’Adua centre, Atiku was attending a meeting with Mr. Buhari and media representatives.
