INEC REGISTERS ATIKU'S PDM PARTY!

Do we have to keep recycling our granpas and aged statesmen? Don't they have any other vocation aside from politics? From Tinubu to Buhari to Atiku, haba, can't you folks sponsor a younger personality, does it have to be you people all the time. You are unwittingly paving the way for GEJ to win a landslide victory in 2015. Well, you folks may be promoting these parties as a veritable negotiating platforms. I do not see a Buhari/Tinubu or Atiku defeating a solid and younger GEJ. Lets be real and practical please.

The newly registered party is linked to former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar

Another party, Independent Democrat, has also been registered.

Abstract: Atiku Abubakar has said that he is still a member of the PDP.

After weeks of speculation, the Independent National Electoral Commission on Friday announced the registration of Peoples Democratic Movement, a party largely believed to have links with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar.

The announcement came a day after Mr. Abubakar admitted his ‘political associates’ were behind the new party.

The electoral commission also registered another party, the Independent Democrat, ID, raising the total number of political parties to 25.

Arriving barely two weeks after three major opposition parties merged into one, the PDM is seen as a potential platform for Mr. Abubakar in 2015; and appears certain to rejig Nigeria’s fast-paced political setting ahead of 2015 elections.

The former vice president, has officially denied being a member of the new party, although his associates have hinted at his interest in informal interviews.

The PDM’s interim chairman, Bashir Yusuf, also told PREMIUM TIMES the former vice president remained a member of the PDP.

“No, Atiku is a member of PDP,” he said.

But what would seem the clearest of hints from the former vice president regarding his links with the new party came Thursday in a statement released by his media team, insisting that Mr. Abubakar remains a member of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, a party he helped found in 1998 from the early structures of PDM.

At the time, PDM was merely political group pioneered by the late Shehu Yar’Adua, the elder brother to former President Umaru Yar’Adua.

But Mr. Abubakar made it clear in the statement that his “associates” were behind the new party, and he had no “right or power to stop others from associating or seeking registration for new parties.”

“While acknowledging that many of his political associates are involved in registering the PDM, Atiku Abubakar explained that he had no powers to stop adults with common interests from coming together to form a party,” the statement said.

He however welcomed the proposed party-as it was at the time, as “the expansion of the political space to accommodate all shades of opinions or political hue.”

Besides an apparent potential for the 2015 presidential election, allies of the vice president speak of the emergence of the new party as a guarded response to Mr. Abubakar’s increasing alienation from the PDP.


Culled from Premium Times