The leadership of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Jada, the home LGA of Atiku Abubakar, says the structure of the party in the area remains strong despite the defection of the former vice president and his loyalists.
Atiku resigned his membership of the PDP earlier in the week through a letter he wrote to the Jada 1 Ward of the party.
Atiku’s loyalists left with him, with many of them claiming that all PDP members in Jada had gone out of the party.
A particularly prominent supporter and kinsman of the former vice president, Umar Jada, known more simply as Calculate, had asserted that not just Jada but all the nine LGAs in southern Adamawa would leave PDP for Atiku’s new platform.
However, in a statement on Saturday, chairman of the PDP in Jada Local Government Area, Salihu Mohammed, said reports suggesting the collapse of the party’s structure after the recent defections of Atiku and his loyalists to the African Democratic Congress, ADC, are unfounded.
Mohammed said those who defected were mostly paperweight politicians whose departure has had no bearing on the strength or unity of the PDP in the area.
“The PDP remains solid and united across all eleven wards in Jada,” Mohammed said, stressing that the defectors had long distanced themselves from party activities before they officially left.
“As much as politics is about personal interest, and they have followed theirs, we wish them well. However, the claim that they have collapsed the PDP structure in Jada is laughable and can only be described as a comic remark,” the Jada PDP chairman said.