Atiku’s Loyalists To Blame For PDP’s Collapse – Osita Okechukwu Fires Back Over Mass Defections

All Progressives Congress (APC) chieftain, Osita Okechukwu, has blamed leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who backed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s presidential ambition for the current wave of defections rocking the opposition party.

Speaking with journalists in Abuja on Thursday, Okechukwu said the PDP has no one to blame but itself, insisting that the mass movement of governors and top members to the APC was a self-inflicted crisis.

According to him, PDP leaders betrayed the party’s long-standing zoning principle during the 2023 presidential primaries, effectively undermining its moral foundation and unity.

He stated, “As CNPP spokesman then, I warned PDP to stop self-serving elders like Atiku Abubakar and his cohorts from breaching the zoning convention during the 2022 presidential primary. Drunk with power, they plunged the party into this mess.”

Okechukwu said the PDP’s disregard for its own constitution has now come back to haunt it, adding that Atiku, who had already benefited from zoning in 2019, should not have been allowed to contest again in 2023.

“The chickens have come home to roost. Instead of admitting its grave political error, PDP continues to cry wolf. The northern electorate, unlike PDP assumed, refused to join their impunity against zoning. For them, Atiku is not Buhari, the Mai Gaskiya,” he said.

He further accused PDP leaders of “burying the soul of the party founded on integrity, unity, and faith,” saying this betrayal triggered the internal implosion and the ongoing exodus of members.

“Those who supported Atiku to destroy zoning are the same ones now leading defections. Their actions gave rise to internal contradictions like the Wike-led G5 group and Peter Obi’s Obidient Movement—both direct consequences of PDP’s betrayal of its zoning convention,” Okechukwu added.