EKITI PDP, AC DISAGREE OVER ATIKU'S PLANNED RETURN TO PDP

By NBF NEWS

The Peoples Democratic Party and the Action Congress in Ekiti State, on Thursday disagreed over an alleged plan by former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and his associates to return to the PDP.

PDP Director of Communication and Strategy in the state, Mr. Jackson Adebayo, and Chief Olajide Awe, the state Chairman of AC, made the positions of their parties known in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria in Ado-Ekiti.

Adebayo described the vice-president' plan as 'courage of a political icon and astute political leader.'

He said the decision to return to PDP was a welcome development in the political history of the country and advised other aggrieved members in opposition parties to emulate the former vice-president.

According to him, 'Atiku's courage to return to PDP is a courage of a political icon and an astute political leader, who knows his worth. Anything outside that courage will be devastating to the political lives of individuals who thought otherwise.

'The return is a welcome development. Atiku knows PDP very well and he is cognisant of the fact that PDP is in charge of the politics of this country and that there is no other party where anybody can get anything except the PDP.

'Everybody in the PDP is waiting for his return to the party. It is an advice to other opposition members and those aggrieved to make sure that they come back to the party.'

But Awe, who noted that Atiku did not belong to the progressives' camp, said the exit of the ex-vice-president from AC would not affect the fortune of the party in the 2011 general election.

He said, 'Consistently, I have been saying that Atiku will find it very difficult to settle down in a progressive camp. If he is moving back to PDP, to me, let it be.

'The exit of Atiku will not affect the fortune of AC in the 2011 general election because we have a lot of progressives in the North, who are ready to come home to their normal base.'