Joseph Bakare
Former Vice President and PDP Presidential aspirant Atiku Abubakar has denied news of his joining another party, urging his followers to dismiss the speculation.
The directive was contained in a statement emanated from his campaign office in Abuja on Sunday.
Reports have it that the defection rumour claimed that Atiku had picked a former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria CBN, Prof. Charles Soludo, as his running mate on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA.
However, the statement described the rumour as “a malicious attempt to confuse the public” about the aspiration of Atiku ahead of the forthcoming Presidential primaries election of the PDP.
“For avoidance of any doubts, Atiku remains the front-line aspirant for the presidential ticket of the PDP.
“In the past two months, Atiku Abubakar has moved across states in the country, consulting with stakeholders of the PDP and explaining to them his agenda as encapsulated in the acronym JOBS (Jobs, Opportunity, Being united and Security) for Nigeria.
“The nationwide consultations continue this week with visits to the South West, North West and North Central zones of the country.
“Atiku’s passion and commitment to winning the PDP primaries is without any compromise and to assume that he will abandon the hard work he has done with the positive results he is getting from the stakeholders of the party is, to say the least, preposterous and unthinkable.
“The campaign calls on supporters of Atiku to remain steadfast and see the contrived news of defection as an an attempt to distract it from the set task of winning the PDP ticket and the 2019 presidential election by the grace of God’’ the statement stressed.