Presidential ticket: Ex-VP Atiku rejoins PDP, Makarfi says ‘I may contest’

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar on Sunday announced his return to the Peoples Democratic Party.

He made the announcement in a live Facebook broadcast.

Atiku was among notable politicians who left the PDP in 2014 to form an alliance that transformed into the All Progressives Congress.

In the broadcast, the former vice-president said in the last two years of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, three million Nigerians had lost their jobs.

According to him, Nigeria needs a non-sectional party to run the Federal Government and not one that panders to regional sentiments.

He said he decided to use the Facebook to announce his return to the PDP because he wanted to reach as many “of our young people as possible as I have an important announcement to make about the future of Nigeria.”

He described youths as the future of the nation.

Atiku said, “I have found in my travels across the country that the number one concern of young people is whether they will be able to get a job; for without a job they have no means of sustaining themselves or starting a family.

“Without the security of a job, we cannot have security in our country. So without jobs, there is no future for you or for Nigeria.

“And I also know as a parent that the older generation is also concerned about jobs for their children and, too often today, for themselves as well.”


He said he joined the APC because he had hoped that it would improve lives of Nigerians and that he was excited about the party’s manifesto to create three million new jobs a year.

He lamented that the result had not been the change the people were promised, adding that in the last two years, three million Nigerians had lost their jobs.