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The former Vice President and presidential candidate of Action
Congress in the 2007 election, Atiku Abubakar said yesterday in Benin City, Edo
State, that his decision to return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in
response to the wishes of his political associates.

Mr Abubakar, who was in Benin to felicitate with the national
leader of the Action Congress and a one-time minister for foreign affairs, Tom
Ikimi, on his 66 birthday, shocked millions of his supporters when he made
public his intention to return to the PDP. He, however, said that his action
amounts to “playing politics.”

The former Vice President lost out in a power contest with his
former boss, then president Olusegun Obasanjo in a doomed campaign to contest
the 2007 presidential election on the platform of the PDP. He later dumped the
party for the Action Congress to further his political ambition.

Mr Abubakar, in an interview with journalists at the Benin
airport, however said “in the game of politics, you don’t have to agree with
everyone all the time.”

Pressure to decamp

Ikimi’s birthday attracted prominent dignitaries including the
former governor of Imo State, Achike Udenwa; governor of Anambra State, Peter
Obi; former governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion and other top PDP and
Action Congress politicians.

NEXT gathered that a closed door meeting between Mr Abubakar and
Mr. Ikimi lasted into the early hours of Monday morning, but the details of the
meeting was not disclosed as at the time of filing this report.

But a source said part of the issues discussed by the two
political associates was to further mount pressure on Mr Ikimi to return to the
PDP. The former minister had vowed not to return to the party even at the risk
of rupturing his relationship with the Atiku group.