Honeymoon Between Atiku and PDP Govs Over, Says Ex-VP’s Former Aide

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

A former Special Adviser to the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and the immediate past governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Adamawa State, Dr. Umar Ardo, has said that the governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have already dumped the former vice president.

In a statement he issued on the political future of the former vice president, Umar Ardo said: “Reading through Atiku’s last Monday’s press conference regarding the outcome of the Supreme Court’s judgment and his position towards President Bola Tinubu’s Presidency vis-a-vis the following day’s communique of the PDP Governor’s Forum after its meeting at the Oyo State’s Governor’s Lodge, it’s obvious that the honeymoon between the party’s 2023 presidential candidate and its governors is now over.”

He further stated that “while the former impugned on the Supreme Court’s judgment and implicitly rejected President Tinubu’s leadership, the latter expressed “faith and confidence in the judiciary to do justice in political and other cases before the courts.”
Ardo noted that “in a separate address to the press following the communique, the chairman of the forum, Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, extolled the leadership qualities of President Tinubu and reiterated the PDP governors’ readiness to cooperate, support and work with the federal government that he leads.

“Nothing else can be more explicit in illustrating the two going on their different and separate ways more than this,” he added.
He argued that “with these opposing positions, it’s just a matter of time (and in a not distant future) for the inevitable implosion to happen, and either Atiku steps down his presidential ambition or leaves the PDP, or be expelled from the party! That’s my reading of the political crystal ball”.
Atiku had rejected the judgment of the Supreme Court and slammed the conduct of the judiciary, but the PDP governors expressed confidence in the judiciary.