The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has said it would not offer former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar an automatic ticket to contest the 2019 presidential election.

Spokesperson for the party, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Friday.

Background:

Atiku had resigned from the All Progressives Congress but has however not made any attempt to join the PDP.

What Adeyeye said:

• Adeyeye said Atiku has seen the light and decided to leave the APC.
• He called on other members of the APC to leave.
• He added that the PDP can accommodate anyone who wanted to be a member or return.

“The PDP is a democratic party. If you come in, you are free to contest elections once you meet our constitutional requirements, but we can’t give our ticket to anybody like that,” Adeyeye said.

He added, “The PDP has the capacity to accommodate everybody. Our doors are open to him (Atiku) to come back to his home without any precondition.

“He is free to come back like every other Nigerian and we want to appeal to those who have not seen the truth and we are praying that they will soon see the truth, so that the truth will set them free. And as soon as they are free, let them come back.”

Adeyeye added that Atiku and others were deceived to leave the PDP.

He said, “I believe Atiku and others were deceived because we had challenges in our party at that point in time, they went and joined the new party called the APC, which we have all now seen; every Nigerian has seen it’s a fallacy.

“The day APC was born marked a tragedy for Nigeria. It has been a monumental disaster for Nigeria. There is nothing progressive about them. Everything about them is unprogressive. Everything about them is a complete disaster.

“It is human to make mistakes because we are not infallible. We have no knowledge of what will happen in the future. Human beings can always be deceived. But in John 8:32, the Bible says ‘And you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

“I believe Atiku Abubakar has come to know the truth, like he said in the statement that he had now known the truth, that the APC is not what they call themselves, that it’s not a better platform. That platform is the worst platform in the history of politics in Nigeria.

“I believe that Atiku has seen the truth and the truth has now set him free and we thank God for that. Therefore, being a founding father and because we have an umbrella that is big enough to accommodate everybody, PDP is a democratic party. PDP is a free party and was conceived for all Nigerians and is free from all religious, ethnicity and geographical divisions.

“It has the capacity to accommodate everybody. Our doors are open for him to come back to his home without any precondition. He is free to come back like every other Nigerian and we want to appeal to those who have not seen the truth and we are praying that they will soon see the truth, so that the truth will set them free. And as soon as they are free, let them come back.”