Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has formally resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ending a decades-long association with the opposition party he helped found.
Atiku’s resignation was confirmed in a letter dated Monday, July 14, 2025, addressed to the chairman of the PDP in Jada 1 Ward, Jada Local Government Area of Adamawa State.
The letter was made public on Wednesday via a post on X by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe.
“I am writing to formally resign my membership from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with immediate effect,” Atiku stated, citing growing disillusionment with the party’s current direction.
“It is with a heavy heart that I resign, recognising the irreconcilable differences that have emerged.”
Atiku expressed gratitude for the roles the party afforded him, including two terms as Nigeria’s Vice President and two presidential candidacies.
Despite describing the decision as “heartbreaking,” he said the PDP had strayed from the foundational principles on which it was built.
“I wish the party and its leadership all the best in the future. Thank you once again for the opportunities and support,” he concluded.
Three times Atiku has dumped PDP
Meanwhile, this is not the first time the former Vice President Atiku is dumping the PDP for another political party. Abubakar first left the party in 2006 when he fell out with President Olusegun Obasanjo and switched to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), where he contested the 2007 presidential elections against Obasanjo’s anointed candidate of the PDP, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. The ruling PDP defeated Atiku’s ACN for Yar’Adua to succeed Obasanjo in office.
After almost six years in the ACN with Bola Ahmed Tinubu (now President Bola Ahmed Tinubu), Atiku left in January 2011 and returned to the PDP. He subsequently contested for the Presidential ticket of the PDP alongside Sarah Jubril and then President Goodluck Jonathan who had succeeded and seeking to be elected as President after Yar’Adua’s demise. Atiku lost at the primary, garnering 805 votes to President Jonathan’s 2,736.
Abubakar once again left the PDP on 2 February 2014 and became a founding member All Progressives Congress (APC), with the ambition of contesting for the presidency ahead of the 2015 presidential election.
However, he was defeated at the APC primary by the then General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), who went ahead to defeat the sitting President Jonathan.
After nearly four years in APC, specifically Friday, 24 November 2017, Atiku left the party and returned again to the PDP on 3 December 2017. The former Vice President then secured the party’s presidential ticket and contested against APC’s Buhari in 2019. However, he lost again.
In 2023, Atiku was again the standard-bearer of the PDP against the Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC but lost again at the poll.
Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the former Vice President, who is currently spearheading a coalition force under the African Democratic Congress (ADC) against the ruling APC, alongside other prominent opposition political figures, is believed to have dumped the PDP again for the coalition party.
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