Why I declined to run against Obasanjo in 2003 –Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar yesterday said he did not run for the presidency in 2003 because it would have been morally wrong for him to have done so.

Atiku, who was responding to a remarks from a participant in his South-west consultative meeting in Ibadan,  said he did not  accept the offer to contest against former President Olusegun Obasanjo then because doing so would be going against the position the PDP  which had zoned the presidency to the South.
The former vice president stressed that his ambition cannot be realised in negation and commitment to party decisions.
“Yes I may nursed legitimate ambition but I am not the kind of person who will want to climb the political ladder because an opportunity cheaply presents itself. You don’t have to stand in the way of commitment to party decisions because you stand the opportunity to benefit from an infraction,” Atiku said.
A snap vote taken at the end of the South-west leg of the consultative meeting at the Golden Tulip Hotel showed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the preferred party with 60 percent,  Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) followed with 29 percent while support for the PDP was 11 percent.
The consultative meeting continues in Bauchi today with the North-east.