THE SUN

You’ll destroy yourself –Atiku tells PDP

By BEIFOH OSEWELE
Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The Atiku Media Office has described as sad and unfortunate the uncouth, knee-jerked and thoughtless reaction of the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to genuine criticism of its monumental failures.

According to a statement signed by released on Tuesday, “for the PDP leadership to have resorted to name-calling and gutter language in response to an opinion voiced by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on the electoral reform shows clearly the level of intolerance in the party.

“It is also an indication of the party’s moral bankruptcy and its unwillingness to change its ways. We are witnessing once again in our history the heedless march of an arrogant, visionless party to self-destruction – just like the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

The Atiku Media Office said its concern stems from the fact that the PDP runs the government at the centre and in a majority of the 36 states of the federation, hence the need for the party to account to Nigerians how and why things are the way they are in the country.
“The PDP does not own Nigeria. That is why we cannot sit back and allow this unruly collection of election riggers and anti-democratic forces to derail our hard-earned democracy or to kill our dreams with mind-boggling ineptitude.

“Atiku Abubakar is not desperate to be President. His criticism of the handling of the electoral reform is borne out of patriotic instinct. Every Nigerian ought to be concerned about the direction in which the PDP is taking the country.

“It is a measure of how low civility has declined in the country that such an innocuous comment by the former Vice President on the need for genuine electoral reform should elicit insults and unnecessary personal attacks. It is also ironic that the author of that infantile statement claims to be a professor, one of the intellectual dwarfs who now run the party and the nation.

“The PDP offers no hope to Nigeria . It is drowning in a sea of mis-governance. It is therefore not surprising that the PDP is hostile to fundamental electoral reform. The party has now been hijacked by election riggers and do-or-die politicians. This is not the party some of us founded in 1998.
“Nigeria urgently needs electoral reforms as contained in the Justice Muhammed Lawal Uwais Report. The government white paper is self-serving, myopic and anti-Nigerian people. The recommendations in the white paper will never guarantee free and fair elections.

“We believe that 2011 calculations informed the federal government’s position on the electoral reform.”
It said that no amount of insult and intimidation by the PDP will stop progressive Nigerians from demanding real changes in our electoral system.

“Unlike the PDP, Atiku’s concern is the larger interest of the country and not the selfish interest of a party and a government hell-bent on imposing itself on a disenchanted populace.
Atiku has long been an apostle of credible elections, a firm believer in pluralistic viewpoints, and a courageous defender of democracy and the rule of law.

His antecedent as a democrat is not in doubt among true democrats. People often forget that Atiku first ran for the Presidency of Nigeria in 1993 and came a respectable third in the SDP primaries. Was he as desperate as his political opponents now claiming he would not have stepped down for Moshood Abiola in Jos in 1993 or refused to run in 2003 despite having a preponderance of PDP governors on his side,” the statement concluded