Former Minister of Women Affairs and prominent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Josephine Anenih, has claimed that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar effectively exited the PDP following his loss in the 2023 presidential election, long before his official resignation this week.
Anenih criticised Atiku for his prolonged absence from party affairs, stating that he had shown no active participation or leadership since the electoral defeat.
“If you ask me, I would say he didn’t exit yesterday; he had exited after the last election,” she said. “Maybe he held a conference once, and that was it. He has not attended any meeting. We even reached out to him.”
Anenih disclosed that the women of the PDP Board of Trustees had personally visited Atiku to urge him to provide leadership and direction as a party elder, but said those efforts yielded no result.
Her remarks follow Atiku’s formal resignation from the party in a letter dated July 14, 2025, in which he cited “irreconcilable differences” and lamented a departure from the PDP’s founding values.
Despite the high-profile exit, Anenih expressed confidence in the party’s resilience, stressing that the PDP’s strength lies in its grassroots base and loyal members.
“In 1998, we didn’t have all those people, and those of us who were there — grassroots people — managed to put the PDP together, and we won,” she said.
Quoting Chief Bode George, she added, “Anybody can go, anybody can come. But for those of us who believe in the PDP, we will do our best. We know that the PDP can never die on our watch. Maybe when we are dead, the PDP can die, but it won’t die before us.”
