Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar Thursday gave reasons why he refused to contest the 2003 presidential ticket against his boss, then President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Atiku had the support of most of the Peoples Democratic Party governors then to contest the party’s presidential ticket against Obasanjo, but the former VP said he declined the invitation on
moral grounds.
Atiku, who was said to be responding to a remark from one of the participants at his South-West consultative meeting in Ibadan, Oyo State on Thursday, noted that contrary to the notion that 2003 presented the golden opportunity for him to have emerged as the president of the country, he still found it difficult to accept the offer because doing so would be going against the position the party had earlier taken at a Caucus meeting to retain the presidency in the South.
A statement by Atiku’s media office in Abuja said the former Vice President noted that his ambition and indeed that of any politician could not be achieved in disobedience to party decisions.
“Yes I may nurse legitimate ambition but I am not the kind of person who will want to climb the political ladder because an opportunity cheaply presents itself. You don’t have to stand in the way of commitment to party decisions because you stand the opportunity to benefit from an infraction”, Atiku said.
The statement said a snap vote taken at the end of the South West leg of the consultative meeting showed that the All Progressives Congress was the preferred party with 60 per cent, followed by the Peoples Democratic Movement with 29 per cent, while support for the PDP was said to be 11 per cent.
Atiku is embarking on a nationwide consultation with his associates and stakeholders in fulfillment of his promise to national leaders of the APC when they paid him a visit at his residence in Abuja last year to woo him to join the party.
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