Former Special Adviser to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on National Assembly Matters, Muhammed Abba-Aji, says he has left the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) because the ex-president squandered the former ruling party’s fortunes.
Mr. Abba-Aji, who formally joined the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) in Borno State last week, said he would rather seek his political future in the APC than remain in PDP.
The former presidential aide also declared his interest to contest the Borno Central Senatorial bye-election to fill the vacuum created by the death of late Senator Zannah Kahlifa in May this year.
Abba-Aji, also a former Senator representing Borno Central between 2003 and 2007, said Mr. Jonathan gave corruption and abuse of power a free hand while he was in office.
“Former President Jonathan, who was the major benefactor of the PDP, chose to kill the party for his selfish interest”, Mr. Abba-Aji told journalists in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, saying he could not foresee any future for PDP.
“During the tenure of President Jonathan as leader of the PDP, he instilled indiscipline, corruption and lack of patriotism not only among members of the party, but among government officials and political appointees, a situation that made Nigerians to lose hope and decide to not to give their votes to the PDP at the national level.
“Nigerians massively voted President Muhammadu Buhari on the platform of the ruling APC, and I am optimistic that Nigerians will never regret voting for the APC”.
On his long absence from the Borno political scene, especially during the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency that has displaced his constituents from their home town, Bama, Abba-Aji said he was forced by the ills that characterized the years of Jonathan’s Presidency to go to Netherlands to study Law to improve his credentials.
He, however, pointed out that he was pressured by his constituents to return home and fill the vacuum created by the demise of late Senator Zannah, to whose family he offered condolences.
