PDP won’t lose sleep over Atiku’s US visa row, say party chieftains

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will not lose sleep over the unresolved bid by the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to obtain a visa to travel to the United States.

Prominent chieftains of the PDP who spoke with our correspondent yesterday dismissed the visa row as a non-issue, saying the party has left the matter for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to be fixated with.

One of the party chieftains, who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity on grounds that the PDP leadership might have a different view, said the matter has been put in abeyance.

The source said: “As far as some of us are concerned, the hoopla over US visa for Atiku has been taken off the discussion table because we don’t want it to become a source of distraction to the party.

“In the first place, we are working to elect a suitable President for Nigeria and not a President for the United States, so those who want to spend their time debating Atiku’s visa application can continue to entertain themselves.

“What I can tell you is that the PDP as a party has moved ahead because we don’t believe that winning the 2019 presidential election would have nothing to do with getting a US visa.”

Another party chieftain who did  not want to be quoted said the issue of Atiku’s US visa has become a lazy talk, adding that for now, the party was busy with its campaign strategies and had little time for such distraction.

He said: “For how long are we going to dwell on a matter that is personal to Atiku as if traveling to America will win the election for our party and candidate?

“As far as some of us are concerned, securing a visa to America won’t win the election for Atiku so we remain unfazed by the matter.”

In his reaction, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, said Atiku remained a global citizen, wondering how many US Presidents are given condition to visit Nigeria as part of requirements for their office.

Stressing that traveling to the US is not one of the conditions for anyone to become the President of Nigeria, he recalled that the late President Umaru Yar ‘Adua never travelled to the United States before he became President in 2007.

In a veiled reference to President Muhammadu Buhari’s frequent medical trips abroad, Ologbondiyan said: “Nigerians don’t need a President that will go and stay in the United Kingdom for several months and wasting the country’s resources in the process.

“Nigerians have never elected their presidents based on whether they have US or UK visas. And our Presidents are not elected on the basis that their actions and inactions should divide Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines like we have today.

“Let the APC continue to be fixated on whether or not Atiku will be given a US visa. What we are telling Nigerians is that we have a candidate that is coming to fix our nation.

“We have a candidate that is coming to address the suffering, devastation, killings, hunger, deprivation; a candidate that will correct the present strangulating economic indices which the APC has foisted on Nigerians.”