Former vice president Atiku Abubakar yesterday told the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to offer him the right of first refusal to the party’s presidential ticket, adding that he already has 11million votes in his kitty.
The former vice president who stated this when he met with the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party yesterday in Abuja, said he will address the challenges of unity, security and economy if he emerges president.
He further assured the party that he will not be like President Muhammadu Buhari who isn’t able to reconcile two parastatals that are fighting over the recruitment in the police while the security situation in the country degenerates.
But the PDP national chairman, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, said despite being friends with Atiku for the past 30years, he won’t work for him to emerge as the candidate.
He also, in a veiled reference to the botched consensus arrangement, urged sympathizers of the party to desist from trying to choose a candidate for the party, stressing that the party has a time-tested way of electing its candidates.
However, Atiku’s claim to the right of first refusal is predicated on his 11,262,978 votes which he got in 2019. In 2007, the former president scored 2,637,848.
Atiku said, “Mr. Chairman and members of the National Working Committee, I’m really not here to lecture you, I’m just really here to inform you of my decision, to run again, and also to urge you to provide the right kind of leadership so that the best candidate can emerge.
