Atiku Rewards Dogara With Appointment Into Campaign Council After He Was Adopted By Northern Christian Elders

Few days after he announced that the Northern Christian Leaders would support his presidential ambition, Atiku Abubakar has appointed former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, into the Presidential Campaign Council, PCC, of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Dogora who has not officially renounced his membership of the All Progressives Congress, APC, withdrew his support for the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, alongside former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal citing the same faith ticket as the reason.

Both Bola Tinubu and his Vice Presidential running mate, Kashim Shettima are Muslims.

After Tinubu and Shettima emerged, Dogara and some northern christians in the APC regrouped and kicked against the same faith ticket.

They subsequently pulled the Christian bloc of the APC out of the party and began negotiation on who to support after repeated calls for Shettima to be replaced failed.

At the conclusion of the negotiation, Lawal announced that Peter Obi of the Labour Party had been accepted as the presidential candidate the group would support since the Muslim-Muslim ticket of the APC was “unsaleable” to their christian brethrens in the North.

Lawal said the group saw the Labour Party’s ticket as most encompassing, “inclusive and acceptable as it reflects the mood and yearning in the country.”

But Dogara alongside some members of the Northern Christian Leaders in the APC who were later joined by non-APC members from the three geopolitical zones in the North, including some muslims, denounced the move saying that “an announcement on who to support would be made soon.”

Against the expectation that they would endorse the Labour Party candidate, the Dogara-led bloc announced days later that they had considered the candidacy of Atiku Abubakar of the PDP as “reflective of the demand of Nigerians” and officially adopted the former Vice President.

As a quid pro quo, the PDP announced Sunday evening that the Bauchi-born lawmaker who has left the PDP twice in the last few years has been appointed into its PCC without a portfolio.

A statement from the Director-General of the PDPPCC and governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, announced that, “The leadership of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council wishes to formally announce that Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara, has been appointed as a member of the Presidential Campaign Council with immediate effect.”

The terse statement further read, “This is part of our continuous effect in joining hands with our presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to recover our great country, Nigeria.”

THE WHISTLER contacted the former Speaker if he had accepted the appointment from the PDP but there was no response to the messages sent to him.