Former Education Minister, Professor Tunde Adeniran, has spoken about his reasons for leaving the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).
According to him, the PDP betrayed him and others who decamped to the Social Democratic Party (SDP). He also attributed his exit to impunity within the PDP circles.
He told Leadership in an interview: “It is the PDP that has betrayed some of us. The PDP has betrayed us because what we all subscribe to when you go back and read the preambles of the PDP, you will know that the party has betrayed many of us.
“We started this party and when you see the mission and vision of the party being aborted, you see so many things happening.
“If you use me as a reference point, in the past, I had the mandate to go to the Senate, it was taken away from me, given to someone who did not even contest; who was not even a member of our party. I didn’t leave the party because I felt we needed to work; the answer was not to leave.
“On two or three different occasions, other parties had attracted me because of some of the things that I went through but I said no, I am not an opportunist. I didn’t come into politics to be seeking for positions and then if I am not I will leave the party, no, that was not the motive.
“There is the need to serve the people but when it starts getting to a situation where that opportunity to serve the people could no longer be there, there will no longer be justice, it is bad. If some other people are elected through a fair, credible process, I will work. I have done it in the past. I will work with them.
“But the principle involved is that you cannot continue to do things the wrong way; you are destroying the future. When you go against the principles, policies, programmes and vision of anybody, it is sabotage. So the people behind it are people who have betrayed the trust.
“Sometimes when I look back and I think through, those who have gone; founders of this party like (Abubakar) Rimi, (Alex) Ekwueme, Solomon Lar, I feel they will be shaking in their graves to see what is happening.
“Those who are still around, why would someone, for instance, Jerry Gana who is spending 18 hours per day since the formative years of this party leave such a party? He was involved at every critical stage of the formation of the PDP but he decided to leave. So it is a painful situation.”
