If I Lose In 2023, I, Other PDP Party Leaders Will Retire — Atiku

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has warned members of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Board of Trustees that the opposition party may not survive another eight years as an opposition party.

Atiku, speaking at a Consultative meeting with the BoT members in Abuja on Tuesday, urged the party’s elders to work with him to win the president in 2023 or “we all retire together.”

He asserted that President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration, in which he served as vice president, had remained the best since 1999.

The presidential hopeful said, “I am worried and you should be worried too that if we do not win, it means we will be in opposition again for the next eight years. By the next eight years, I don’t know how many of us will be left in politics and it may even ultimately lead to the death of the party because people gravitate, particularly in developing countries, towards governments. So this is a very crucial and historical moment in history, for our survival.”

Speaking on the issue of zoning, Atiku asked members of the PDP not to be considering zoning because the APC has done same.

“We invented and formulated this zoning policy simply because we wanted every part of this country to have a sense of belonging and I personally have paid my dues on the issue of zoning.

“Therefore, you cannot come and try to imply that the PDP has not been following the zoning policy. The many years of PDP government eight years and six years all of them were from the south. So, we should not be stampeded by the opposition party. They have a moral obligation.”

The presidential hopeful said his vision was to build bridges across the country and called on the BoT members to join him in building bridges so that every part of this country would have a sense of belonging.