Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, says Peter Obi left the PDP out of fear.
Speaking during a news conference in Abuja on Thursday, Atiku traced the development that led to Obi’s departure from the opposition party to the internal power struggles that happened before the PDP primaries in May 2022, saying the demands of the PDP governors scared Obi and forced him out of the party
“When the campaign started and our PDP governors sat down and said they must produce a President among them, they must produce a Vice President amongst them, they must produce a Chief of Staff among them, Peter (Obi) got scared and left”, Atiku said.
The former vice president said he refused to be intimidated by the governors and decided to fight them. “I did not get scared, I stood up against the governors. When we formed this PDP, some of them perhaps were in secondary school or university. So why should I be afraid”,,he asked.
Atiku also said he would have picked Obi as his running mate again if he had remained in the PDP. “I had the right to chose whoever I wanted, you know, as my running mate. So the question of whether I would work with Peter (Obi) or not, whether Peter wounded PDP, yes to some extent”, Atiku said.
But he dismissed it as part of politics, saying he still fully supports the quest for a president of Igbo extraction. He, however, added that for the south east to win the presidency, it must negotiate for power as no zone alone can single-handedly produce the president of Nigeria.
