Former Minister of Women Affairs and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, Josephine Anenih, has claimed that Atiku Abubakar effectively abandoned the party following his defeat in the 2023 presidential election long before his official resignation.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, Anenih said Atiku’s absence from party meetings and lack of engagement post-election made it clear that he had emotionally and politically disconnected from the PDP.
“If you ask me, I would say he didn’t exit yesterday; he had exited after the last election,” she said. “Maybe he held one press conference, and that was it. He has not attended any meetings. We even reached out to him.”
Anenih revealed that members of the PDP’s Board of Trustees—especially the women—personally appealed to Atiku to show leadership in a time when the party was losing direction.
“We told him the party is drifting. We see him as our ‘baba,’ our leader. We expected him to rise to the occasion and give us direction,” she added.
Her comments came just days after Atiku formally resigned from the PDP in a letter dated July 14, 2025, addressed to the Chairman of Jada 1 Ward, Adamawa State. In the letter, Atiku cited “irreconcilable differences” and expressed disappointment in the party’s current trajectory, which he said no longer aligns with its founding vision.
Despite the exit of the former vice president, Anenih expressed optimism about the future of the party. She insisted that PDP’s core strength lies in its committed grassroots base—not in any single personality.
“In 1998, we didn’t have all these big names. It was us, the grassroots people, who built the PDP from the ground up—and we won,” she recalled. “As Chief Bode George rightly said, people may come and go, but the PDP will stand.”
“Maybe when we are dead, the PDP can die. But not before us,” she concluded defiantly.
