How I Rejected Calls To Run Against Obasanjo In 2003 – Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has revealed how he decided to ignore calls to run against ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo in the 2003 presidential election.

Abubakar made this known while speaking at the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Abuja on Thursday.

The former presidential candidate disclosed some governors approached him to stop the second term bid of Obasanjo by running against him, saying that he rejected their calls.

Abubakar said he rejected the governors’ calls because of the NEC resolution, where it had decided that power should remain in the South West for eight years.

He said: “All the PDP governors and some members of the party met me at the Villa and said that they were not going to support [then] President Olusegun Obasanjo for a second term, that I should run.

“I now referred them to the resolution of NEC where NEC had decided that power should remain in the southwest for eight years.

“How do you want me to go against the resolution of NEC and I turned it down, and we moved on. So, this country has a sense of fairness. This country has a sense of justice, this country has a sense of fairness.

“Therefore, this thing that is in-built in our party, we should be able to use it, to embed it, to make sure today’s deliberation is in the best interest of our party, in the best interest of Nigeria, which will ultimately give us the victory that we asked for — to go back to the Villa.”