Ganduje says Atiku’s defection not surprising as APC wishes him well

The All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, said there were no hard feelings over the decision by the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to dump the party.Its spokesperson, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, while reacting to the development, noted that the move was in tandem with the tenets of democracy. 

He stated: “Politics is about interests. We have not seen any formal notification to that effect, but based on what we have seen in the social media, we can say all together that it is surprising, but for us, politics is all about interest. 

“So, if the former Vice President feels that his interest is better served elsewhere, we can always wish him good luck. “For us, the task of building a political party is not a day’s job; it is marathon and it takes many years and we will continue to improve on our system until we are able to get the kind of party that we want to really, really build.

“It takes many years to build a strong political party. In a new party, you find some people are happy, some people are not so happy and everybody would have to take their decisions at some point.

“So, we don’t have anything to say rather than to wish the former vice president good luck.”On whether his exit could affect the fortunes of the party, he said: “Loss of fortune is in numbers. So, if we are able to see the number of people that followed him to his new party, that is when we will begin to worry.

“So, when we see, we will know whether we need to worry or not.”

Speaking in the same vein, Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, believed Atiku would return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

“He has his own freedom to choose whichever political party he wants to belong. He defected to the PDP. He was in the PDP before and another party, too. So, it is not surprising if he decided to go to another party.  

“I think in a democracy, it is like that, as people can choose where they want to be and we are not committing any crime by choosing where we want to be.”