Former Vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, has officially been declared as the standard bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election.
He secured an emphatic victory on Saturday at the party’s Special National Convention and presidential primary election in Abuja.
He was announced the winner about 11.48 pm having secured 371 votes. He was trailed in the second position by Rivers State Governor, Mr Nyesom Wike who garnered 237 votes.
A former Senate President Bukola Saraki was third with 70 votes while the remaining aspirants trailed behind the three dominant aspirants that produced the winner, the first and second runners up.
Atiku’s victory was made much more possible with the withdrawal of Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, who had called on his delegates to cast their votes for Atiku.
Recall that Tambuwal was first runner up to Atiku in 2019 at the party’s presidential primary election in Port Harcourt.
Atiku had won in spite of the fact that Wike threw his support behind Tambuwal.
This time round, in 2022, Tambuwal did not reciprocate Wike’s gesture by supporting him when it mattered most. Tambuwal decided to align with Atiku Abubakar.
Accepting his nomination after he was announced as the party’s candidate, Atiku pledged that he would unify Nigeria.
Describing himself as a unifier, he said he would work round the clock to repair the damage the All Progressives Congress, APC, government of President Muhammadu Buhari had done by sharply disuniting Nigeria, diving it into North and south.
He said he would tackle both the security and economic challenges that the APC administration had unleashed on Nigeria.
Atiku sought the cooperation of his co-contestants in the task ahead, assuring them that they were part and parcel of the process to take over power from the APC in 2023.
He appeared to aggrieved party members to rest assured that he would deploy the party’s internal mechanisms for conflict resolution in addressing their grievances.
He urged them to discontinue their sundry court cases that had produced all manner of conflicting judgments, orders and injunctions.
He commended the electoral panel and the PDP leadership for organising one of the freest and fairest elections in the history of the party
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