The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has hit back at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, blaming him for the protracted leadership crisis rocking the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Atiku had, at a political event in Abuja on Monday, accused the APC and President Bola Tinubu of sponsoring the ongoing leadership crises threatening the stability of opposition parties.
Apart from the PDP, the Labour Party (LP) and the All Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) are also embroiled in leadership crises that are destabilising their structures at the national level.
But the APC, in a reaction through a statement on Tuesday by its spokesman, Felix Morka, took a swipe at Atiku, saying that it’s his inordinate ambition to become president at all costs that is tearing the PDP apart.
“The former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, like a badly broken record, has continued to point fingers at the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the festering rot in his party and the spectacular dysfunction of opposition parties generally.
“At the national conference on strengthening democracy in Nigeria held in Abuja on Monday, January 27, 2025, Atiku warned that the nation’s democracy was somewhat imperilled by judicial involvement in electoral matters. Also, without a shred of evidence, Atiku alleged that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was paying certain opposition leaders a whooping 50 million naira each to discombobulate opposition parties in the country.
“It was in the Atiku era as Vice President, particularly in 2003 and 2007, that the PDP conducted the worst elections in our political history. We cannot possibly forget how Atiku’s PDP heavy-handedly captured most South-West states and vowed to remain in power for 60 years. It was in those same years that Atiku’s former boss and then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, infamously described the election as a ‘do or die affair’ in a desperate attempt to annex Lagos. If democracy was neither derailed nor endangered in those perilous days, is it now that elections are by far freer, fairer and more credible that Nigeria risks losing democracy?” Morka said.
The APC spokesman said the judicial branch of government is a constitutional creation like the executive and legislative branches with constitutionally defined powers to adjudicate disputes among citizens and between citizens and the state.
He said Atiku cannot wish away or seek to abolish the enshrined power of the courts to intervene in civil disputes, including electoral disputes, in cases where the authority of the court is validly invoked by a litigant.
“It is a thing of irony that Atiku, who is Nigeria’s most prolific electoral litigator, would make such a ludicrous claim that judicial involvement in electoral matters is a threat to democracy. His criticism of the courts and the electoral process rings hollow given his long history of using the courts to further his political agenda. It’s time for him to take a step back and let the democratic process unfold without his interference.
“Nigeria’s democracy is far stronger than Atiku’s political ambitions. We deserve better than petty politicking and alarmist rhetoric from an elder statesman. As a veteran politician, one would expect Atiku to understand that while democracy may be about winning elections, it is, more importantly, about respecting the will of the electorate and working towards the greater good of all. Atiku should focus on rebuilding his party and offering constructive solutions to Nigeria’s challenges,” he added.
Morka described Atiku’s allegation that the APC-led administration was paying out 50 million Naira to some opposition figures as bogus and laughable.
According to him, Atiku ought to know that his political desperation is responsible for the PDP’s catastrophic disintegration.
“Peddling rumours and unsubstantiated allegations should be beneath anyone in the standing of an elder statesman, a former Vice President and a serial contestant for the exalted office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“The bizarre suggestion by opposition figures like Atiku, Peter Obi, and recently aggrieved leaders like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai that our great party may be complicit in the internal corrosion of opposition parties is pitiful and only an incompetent alibi for their crass failure to manage their own affairs. They cannot govern their parties but tout their ability to govern Africa’s most populous country.
“As discerning citizens, Nigerians know better than to be distracted by the false alarm and hollow allegations of desperate politicians whose only goal is to shore up their political relevance in the build-up to the 2027 general elections,” the APC added.
