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Atiku Tasks PDP Members on Reclaiming Party’s Lost Glory
Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, has called on leaders and stakeholders of the party to reflect on prevailing challenges and come up with strategies that will enable the PDP to take its dominant place once again.
Atiku gave the charge in Abuja on Thursday at a reception organized for returning and newly elected governors on the platform of the party.
“We have a number of challenges. We started as a dominant political party in 1999, but since then, we have been receding. It is time to take stock and find out why we are receding and how we can make sure that our position as the leading political party in the country can be regained.
“This is a very important challenge that requires a whole day seminar so that we can as a party regain our eminent position in the country,” he said.
The former vice president also urged party leaders and members alike to be hopeful of the favourable outcome in the presidential election petition.
“We all know that the PDP did not lose the last election. We should be determined and focus on retrieving our mandate that has been stolen,” Atiku said.
Earlier in his opening address, acting National Chairman of the party, Umar Damagum, said Nigerians are resolute in seeing justice done to the petition filed by the PDP at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
“The only solution for the common man is to have a just adjudication in the election petition,” he said, stressing that issues affecting the party were being addressed by the National Working Committee.
Also speaking, former Vice President and Chairman of the occasion, Namadi Sambo, called for togetherness, lamenting the Ill treatment being meted out to some PDP members, particularly in his home state of Kaduna.
“What is happening in some states today is very unfortunate. What is happening in Kaduna State today where people are being suspended from the party without due process, is worrisome.
“I want to seize this opportunity to publicly ask the acting National Chairman to look into what is happening in Kaduna State because all the ingredients for trouble and problem in the party are taking place,” he said.
Chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal, described the event as a moment of joy, “a moment for learning and support”, adding that “the mandate freely given to our party and candidate will be restored by the court”.
Speaking on the theme, “Good governance at the sub-national level: Issues, perspectives, expectations and outcomes”, the keynote speaker, Mudal Lawal, tasked the returning and governors-elect to put emphasis on performance management, fiscal performance indicators, fiscal resilience and devolution of powers.
He also urged the governors to prioritize appointing the right people into offices, stressing that with the right appointees, policies and programmes of government would run with ease.
“Appoint the right people. You must be resilient in your ability to meet operational costs with your Internally Generated Revenue. Equally important is a robust monitoring and evaluation system,” he said.
Lawal further enjoined the governors to be prudent in the management of resources, noting that debt to service ratio is becoming an issue of governance in public administration in the country over the past couple of years.
At the event were newly elected Governors of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori, his Plateau and Zamfara States counterparts, Caleb Mutfwang and Dauda Lawal; Taraba State Governor-elect, Agbu Kefas as well as Peter Mbah of Enugu State.
The Rivers State Governor-elect, Simi Fubara was absent at the event.
Meanwhile, PDP G-5 boycotted the reception event organized for new and returning PDP Governors.
The event put together by the PDP Governors Forum was expected to bring together for the first time, Atiku and Governors Nyesom Wike, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, Samuel Ortom, Okezie Ikpeazu and Seyi Makinde of Rivers, Enugu, Benue, Abia and Oyo States respectively.
The five governors allegedly worked against the PDP in the February 25 presidential election, a development that contributed in part to the defeat suffered by the PDP.
None of the five governors sent a representative to the well-attended event or word explaining their absence.
The Punch
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has expelled Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Nyesom Wike, its suspended National Secretary, Samuel Anyanwu, and former Governor of Ekiti State, Ayo Fayose.
Their expulsion was announced on Saturday at the party’s National Convention in Ibadan, Oyo State.
The Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) has insisted that there is Christian genocide ongoing in Nigeria, hence demanding end to the alleged Christian killings.
Speaking on Thursday after an emergency executive meeting of the Fellowship held at its national headquarters in Lagos, PFN President, Bishop Francis Wale Oke, said the body would no longer remain silent while Christians are “targeted, killed, raped, and displaced” across the country.
He said: “There is Christian genocide going on in Nigeria. If we call it by any other name, it will bring Nigeria down. We are crying out to our international friends, beginning with America and Donald Trump. Whatever you can do to help our government put an end to it, come quickly and get it done. When on Christmas Day, Christmas Day was turned a bloody day in Benue State, and hundreds were massacred. And we are to be conducting mass funerals when we are not in open conflict. What do you call that? And this is different from individual cases.
“Let us call a spade a spade. There is Christian genocide ongoing in Nigeria,”Bishop Oke declared.
“Even while we speak, killings are still taking place in Borno, Plateau, and Benue states. When 501 Christians were massacred in Dogon Noma in Plateau, what do we call that? When Christmas Day turned into a bloody day in Benue, with hundreds massacred, what name should we give it?
While noting that the United States President Donald Trump spoke the truth, the PRN President cited the case of Leah Sharibu who was abducted alongside other Chibok girls and has since remained in captivity.
“Like the case of Leah Sharibu. Where is Leah Sharibu? Like the case of Deborah that was lynched and burned alive in Sokoto? What about that? And several of our girls were kidnapped and forced, given out as wives by force without the consent of their parents and their Christian parents. And the Christian parents would not see them for years.And this has been going on. We have been talking and we are not taking it seriously. And it has been going on again and again, until Donald Trump now spoke. And Donald Trump spoke the truth. There is Christian genocide going on in Nigeria.
“Like you will have picked in the news, even since this narrative began, killing was still going on in Borno, in Plateau, in Benue, up until yesterday. What are we saying? When 501 Christians were massacred in Dogonaya in Plateau State, what do we call that? And for no offense other than they are Christians.”
Oke recalled that the Christian community had repeatedly called the attention of the government to the alleged genocide with no decisive action from the authority.
The cleric expressed his backing for President Trump’s intervention, adding that Trump only echoed what Nigerian Christians had been saying for year
“I was part of the team that went to see the immediate past President, Muhammadu Buhari. We spoke very strongly about this and the President listened to us, but he completely ignored the main issue we came for, If we came and spoke with such vehemence, with such passion, and then you pick the peripheral matter and left this matter alone, I knew that day that his government was complicit in what was going on,” he added.
Oke alleged that the killings across parts of Nigeria were systematic and targeted on Christians, lamenting that the killings had continued unchecked despite repeated appeals from the Church.
“The evidence is all over the place. There is nothing anybody can say that can whitewash it. It is evil, it is blood shedding, it is mass murder and it is genocide. The time to stop it is now. That is what the church in Nigeria is saying with one voice.
“Christians in this nation must be free to practice their faith in any part of Nigeria as bona fide citizens of Nigeria.
“These armed bandits, Fulani herdsmen, Boko Haram, ISWAP, all of them using Islam as a cover. We have been living in peace with our Muslim brothers for a long, until this violent Islamic sect came up with an intent to make sure they impose Sharia on all Nigerians,” Oke said.
Bishop Oke called on President Bola Tinubu to decisively overhaul the nation’s security architecture, and ensure justice for victims of religious violence. He questioned why those responsible for notorious attacks—such as the killing of Deborah Samuel in Sokoto and the abduction of Leah Sharibu and the Chibok schoolgirls—remain unpunished.
“The government should prove by action, not words, that it is not complicit,” he said. “When hundreds are buried in mass graves and the whole world sees it, who can deny it? Why should we play politics with the blood of Nigerians?”
The PFN urged President Tinubu’s administration to rebuild trust by ensuring that the security architecture of the country is not infiltrated by those sympathetic to extremist ideologies.
Oke further condemned the government’s rehabilitation of so-called “repentant terrorists,” describing the move as a grave security.
He assured Christians that the PFN would continue to speak out until the killings stop. “We are not going to keep quiet. We will keep raising our voices until justice is done and every Nigerian, regardless of faith, can live in peace. The truth may be suppressed for a time, but it cannot be buried forever,” he said.
The meeting, which drew PFN leaders from across the country, reaffirmed the body’s commitment to national unity, peace, and the protection of fundamental human rights, while urging the media to “side with the oppressed” and report the truth without fear or bias.
US President Donald Trump has signed a federal spending bill, officially ending the longest government shutdown in American history.
The legislation, passed by the House of Representatives in a 222–209 vote, followed narrow approval in the Senate just two days earlier. The bill restores funding to federal agencies after 43 days of closure, bringing relief to millions of government employees and citizens affected by halted services.
Speaking after signing the measure on Wednesday night, Trump described the deal as a political victory, asserting that Democrats unnecessarily prolonged the shutdown.
“They didn’t want to do it the easy way. They had to do it the hard way, and they look very bad,” he said.
The temporary funding bill maintains government operations only through 30 January, creating a new deadline for lawmakers to negotiate a long-term budget solution.
As part of the agreement, Senate leaders committed to an early December vote on Obamacare subsidies, a key priority for Democrats during the shutdown standoff.
In addition to reopening federal offices, the bill provides full-year funding for the Department of Agriculture, military construction projects, and several legislative branch offices.
It also ensures retroactive pay for federal workers affected by the shutdown and allocates funding to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, which helps about one in eight Americans access food.
The shutdown, which began in October, forced the suspension of many government services, leaving an estimated 1.4 million federal employees either furloughed or working without pay. It also disrupted food assistance programmes and caused widespread delays in domestic air travel.
With federal operations now resumed, attention in Washington has turned to whether Congress and the White House can reach a longer-term funding agreement before the new deadline at the end of January.
