The All Progressives Congress has welcomed the defection of Abubakar Atiku Abubakar, son of a former vice-president, to the ruling party.

In a statement on Friday, the Lagos spokesperson of the APC, Seye Oladejo, described Mr Abubakar’s move as a vote of confidence in President Bola Tinubu and the ruling party.

“Abubakar Atiku Abubakar’s decision to join the APC is a generational rebuke of recycled politics, expired ambitions, and the illusion of leadership without conviction,” the statement said. “It is an emphatic vote of confidence in the APC’s record of governance and in the Renewed Hope Agenda being diligently implemented under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

Mr Abubakar defected from the Peoples Democratic Party to the APC on Thursday, declaring his support for Mr Tinubu’s second term.

His father, Atiku Abubakar, who reacted to the development shortly after the announcement, stated that his son’s decision were neither “unusual nor alarming”.

However, the APC said the younger Abubakar’s decision to join the ruling party showed his father lacks the required credibility to lead Nigeria.

“This singular act has said more than a thousand press conferences ever could. When a man’s own son deserts his political judgment, repudiates his choices, and embraces an alternative path, Nigerians are entitled to ask: what deeper indictment of credibility is required?” said the APC statement. “If those closest to you are unconvinced by your political convictions, how do you expect an entire nation to suspend disbelief?”

Berating the former vice-president, the statement said, “From PDP to AC, back to PDP, and now to the ADC, his politics has been nothing more than a nomadic ambition in search of a party, any party, willing to mortgage its soul. That his own son has now drawn a clear line of departure is not coincidence. It is confession.”

The APC statement added, “Let it be said without equivocation: when credibility collapses at home, it cannot be rehabilitated in the marketplace of national politics.

“Nigerians are discerning enough to understand that trust begins from within, and leadership that cannot inspire loyalty in its immediate constituency cannot inspire confidence in a nation of over 200 million people.”