Drama as Atiku Haske Organisation Expels Atiku’s Son

…Says He Was a Joiner, not Founder
…Has no Right Power to Collapse Group into APC, says Convener

By Abu Adamu
The Atiku Haske Organisation has expelled Abba Atiku Abubakar, son of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, insisting that he was never the founder of the group but merely a member who was invited to join and later acted outside its mandate.

The initiator and convener of the organisation, Hon. Mai Nagge Musa Bakari, said Abba Atiku was expelled after he declared for APC, and openly directed coordinators and members of the political structure to mobilise support for the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a move which he said is fundamentally at odds with the group’s purpose and identity.

Hon. Bakari dismissed claims by Abba that he owned or founded the organisation, stressing that the Atiku Haske Organisation was initiated and convened independently and that Abba neither established nor led it. “He was not the founder of this organisation. He was invited to join like others. His actions, especially instructing members to support President Tinubu, has made his continued membership untenable,” Bakari said.

Bakari challenged Abba to demonstrate in what ways he has supported the organization, stating that he neither contributed a kobo to its registration nor is he in possession of its registration certificate.

The expulsion follows Abba Atiku’s recent defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his announcement that the Atiku Haske Organisation had been collapsed into the ruling party and renamed the Haske Bola Tinubu Organisation. The leadership of the Atiku Haske Organisation has rejected that claim, insisting that the structure remains intact and that Abba lacked the authority to speak or act on its behalf.

The development comes against the backdrop of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s reaction last week to his son’s defection, which he deliberately played down as politically insignificant. In a statement on his verified X handle, Atiku described Abba’s decision as a purely personal one that neither reflects his own political convictions nor alters his opposition to the APC’s governance record and its handling of Nigeria’s economic and social challenges.

Sources close to Atiku have also dismissed the political weight of the defection, noting that Abba is primarily a businessman with no established political profile and describing the move as business-driven rather than ideological. The sources further downplayed the political relevance of the Atiku Haske Organisation as projected by APC figures, insisting that it was never a consequential political movement within Atiku’s broader political machinery.

While the APC has projected Abba Atiku’s defection as symbolic, with Deputy Senate President Barau Jibrin describing it as ideologically motivated, the formal expulsion of Atiku’s son by an organisation bearing his father’s name has added a fresh layer of irony to the unfolding drama.

Meanwhile, the political controversy surrounding Abba Atiku’s defection had last week drawn sharp reactions from the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which framed the move as a damaging verdict on former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s political credibility. In a statement titled “You Can’t Trust Atiku More Than His Son,” the party argued that the decision of Atiku’s son to align with the APC spoke louder than any opposition rebuttal.

The Lagos APC spokesperson, Seye Oladejo, described the defection as a “political earthquake,” insisting that it amounted to a direct repudiation of Atiku Abubakar’s political judgment, particularly his flirtation with the African Democratic Congress (ADC). According to Oladejo, when a politician’s own son rejects his political path, Nigerians are entitled to question the credibility and coherence of that path.

Oladejo further accused Atiku of long-standing ideological inconsistency, portraying his career as a cycle of serial defections and transactional alliances driven by presidential ambition rather than conviction. From the Peoples Democratic Party to the Action Congress and back, and now to the ADC, Oladejo said Atiku’s politics reflected “a nomadic ambition in search of relevance,” rather than a stable ideological compass.

He argued that Abba Atiku’s defection represented a generational rejection of what he called “recycled politics and expired ambitions,” and an implicit endorsement of the APC’s governance record and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. The Lagos APC spokesman concluded that leadership unable to command loyalty at home cannot expect trust nationally, urging Nigerians to “read the political handwriting on the wall.”