Former senator and founding member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abubakar Sadiq Yaradua, has dumped the ruling party, accusing its leadership of betraying its founding ideals and turning its back on ordinary Nigerians.
In a resignation letter addressed to the APC Ward Chairman of Wakilin Gabas II Ward in Katsina Local Government Area, Yaradua said the party has strayed from its core mission.
“I can no longer remain in a party that has completely abandoned its foundational principles and objectives of being a servant of our teeming talakawa (masses),” he wrote.
Yaradua, who played a key role in the formation of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), said many of those who claimed to be progressives during the Jonathan administration have now revealed their true colors.
“Today, the same elements, who pretended to be ‘comrades’ in that struggle, but who have now laid siege on the nation and surprisingly turned out to be more retrogressive and reactionary than those we removed in the 2015 general elections,” he said.
He blamed the APC-led government for worsening insecurity and hardship across the country.
“I can not remain in a party or support a government that unashamedly watches its citizens being maimed, intimidated, sexually-harassed, assaulted, killed and uprooted from their lands, lively-hood and life possessions, while the government, its leadership and organs, at the very top of the roof, remain aloof and unconcerned,” he stated.
On the economy, Yaradua described the government’s policies as harmful to the people.
“I can not support a party whose elected government imposes destructive economic policies that undermine, destroy, and desecrate, the lives, welfare, dignity, lands and livelihood of our people,” he said.
He echoed former Kaduna Governor Nasir El-Rufai’s criticism of the government, referring to APC leaders as “urban bandits” and added his own phrase—“bandits in government.”
Yaradua also revealed his next move, saying he will join efforts to unseat the APC through democratic means.
“I, therefore, have no option other than to join hands with like-minds to democratically remove this bad, selfish and stinkingly corrupt administration that only caters to the lives of the petit-bourgeois elements and the interests of International Monopoly Capital,” he said.
He called on his supporters in Katsina and beyond to follow him to the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
“It is my prayer and hope that my numerous supporters, associates, and admirers in Katsina State, with whom I have shared common ideas, ideals, values, principles, and ideological tendencies… will soon join me in the ADC – a party for all Nigerians, that is poised to change and re-shape the cause of Nigeria’s political history by restoring the nation’s lost glory,” he wrote.
Yaradua’s resignation adds to growing tensions within the APC, especially in its northern base.
