Amidst PDP Crises, Atiku Leaves Dubai, Travels To UK

The 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar is understood to have crossed from Dubai to the United Kingdom (UK).

Atiku has been out of the country for about three weeks now amidst the crisis rocking the PDP over the emergence of Ifeanyi Okowa as his running mate even as a section of the PDP leaders have openly expressed their displeasure over the choice of Okowa and how Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike was treated in the saga.

Reacting to the grumblings within the party, Naija News recalls the PDP BoT Chairman, Senator Walid Jibrin had disclosed that a reconciliation team to be headed by Atiku himself will soon get to work and visit aggrieved members as soon as he (Atiku) returns to Nigeria.

However, information obtained by Naija News does not suggest Atiku is planning to return to Nigeria yet.

Sources quoted by Vanguard have it that Atiku has moved to the UK for his Master’s Degree Convocation at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK.

The University’s convocation programme will hold in Chelmsford, Cambridge and Peterborough from Monday, 11 July until Friday, 29 July.

Atiku completed his Master’s degree in International Relations at the institution in November 2021, Naija News understands.

Speaking on the continued absence of the former Vice President from the country, a PDP leader in Plateau State said “He was not in Ekiti, won’t he be in Osun too? How are we going to explain his absence? Or is it that he does not understand the importance of the Ekiti and Osun elections? Maybe he is feeling that after winning the primary, he has automatically won the main election.”

Also, a former member of the PDP National Working Committee expressed worry that even “during Sallah celebration, our presidential candidate, a Muslim, is not here to celebrate with our people. This is not too good because there is no other Eid-el-Kabir festival before the election in February, next year.

He lamented further that Atiku appears disconnected from the people he wants to lead and called on the party leadership to quickly address the situation.

“If this level of disenchantment by the former Vice President is allowed to grow beyond this level, it will be difficult to handle.”

“Well meaning stakeholders of the party should wade in now so that we won’t have a repeat of 2015 and 2019,” he concluded.

The developing scenario has got many PDP stakeholders making reference to how Atiku left Nigeria after losing the 2019 presidential election and was away in Dubai for over seven months.