PDP owes me, says Atiku

A former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has said his former political party, the Peoples Democratic Party, owes him a debt of gratitude.

Abubakar, however, said he  did not owe the ruling party anything.

It will be recalled that the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, had recently said that Abubakar owed the party a debt of gratitude for providing him a political platform that helped him to emerge as the former Vice President.

But the former Vice President said in a statement in Abuja on Sunday, that contrary to the claim by the leadership of the PDP, it was indeed his former party that owed him a debt of thanks.

The former Vice President, who resigned his membership of the PDP in February to join the All Progressives Congress, noted that the insinuation being peddled by Metuh that he was ungrateful to the PDP was a distortion of history.

The statement particularly noted that neither Metuh nor anyone currently in position of authority in the PDP today was there when the PDP was formed.

He said, “If the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP doesn’t have the knowledge of how the party came into being, then it will be in order that he goes into the archives and read about the history of the party and the roles certain individuals, particularly former Vice President Atiku Abubakar played in building the party.

“For the avoidance of doubt, Atiku Abubakar does not owe the PDP. Rather, it is the PDP that owes him a debt of thanks. Where were Metuh and his paymasters when the PDP was in its formative stage? If he and his paymasters came as free riders into the party, that shouldn’t mean they have the licence to distort history.

“The demagogic outburst and the repeated innuendoes by which the PDP has been nursing its wounds following the exit of its founding fathers will do no good for the party to reverse the trend of how it is fast losing acceptability by the Nigerian people.”

He said Metuh and his co-travellers in the PDP should focus more on improving the lives of citizens, redressing the parlous state of the nation’s economy and stemming the state of insecurity instead of distorting history.

He said, “Nigerians need good governance. They need to be told how the only country we all call home can be safe for each and every one of us. Nigerians need a political party that will work on the parlous state of the country’s economy and restore financial confidence to Nigerians who work hard to support their families. The youths of Nigeria need a political party that can give them a direction to the future.

“There are very many challenges besetting the country today and it will be incongruous that a political party in government will ignore these challenges and continue to vituperate over individuals who have deserted its fold to join forces with other political parties better suited to provide solutions to the myriad of problems confronting the country.”

The former Vice President, who used the opportunity to commiserate with the government and people of Kaduna, Benue, Katsina and  Borno states following the recent spate of killings in their states, said the PDP and its leadership must wake up to face the challenges ahead.

In his reaction, Metuh said though he would not exchange words with Atiku, he however maintained that he had been in the party since inception.

PUNCHNG