Nigeria’s former Minister of Women Affairs, Iyom Josephine Anenih, said contrary to the impression that former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and two-time presidential candidate of the deeply embattled Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, left the party on July 14, 2025 when he officially tendered his resignation, that he indeed left the party soon after he lost the 2023 election.
Amid gale of defections by prominent members of the PDP to either the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, or the newly adopted African Democratic Congress, ADC, by the political coalition spearheaded by Atiku, Iyom Anenih said she would remain an “everlasting member” of the PDP.
Speaking on Thursday on Channels Television programme, Politics Today, the former National Women Leader of the PDP, dismissed the notion that Atiku’s exit was a big blow to the chances of the party winning the 2027 presidential election.
She disclosed how the women in the party’s Board of Trustees reached out to him pleading with him to take charge and reposition the party but showed no interest.
According to Iyom Anenih, “Well, if you ask me, I will say that he didn’t exit yesterday. He had exited after the last election because after the last election, maybe he held a conference once, or something, and that was it. He had not attended any meeting. We have even reached out to him.
“Even the women, we got ourselves together – women in the Board of Trustees – we went to him and we told him that the party is drifting because there is no leadership and we look at you as our Baba; as our leader, and we expected you to take action, to be in the forefront to give direction. And he was, like, well… He didn’t actually…He has not attended any meetings; he had not done anything”.
On the PDP being able to move on from here, she said “Listen, in 1998, we didn’t have all these people. And those of us who were there, grassroots people, penniless people, we managed to put PDP together and we won.
“So, like Chief Bode George said, anybody can go, anybody can come. But for those of us who believe in PDP, we will do our best, and we know that PDP can never die on our watch”.
Vowing to ever remain in the PDP, Iyom Anenih said, “I am a foundation member, an everlasting member, a life Board of trustee member. So, until I die, I remain in the PDP.
“We (my family) gave birth to PDP. PDP is a child from my womb, particularly. So, I can’t throw away my pickin”. She insisted she would stick with the PDP till the end.