The President won Abubakar after scoring 2,736 votes out the 5,000 cast by delegates at the party’s presidential primaries in Abuja on Thursday.
The ex-vice-president had only 805 votes while the only woman presidential aspirant, Dr. Sarah Jubril, scored one vote.
Although Jibril has remained silent on the primaries, the Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, in a statement on Friday, said the former vice-president would soon make his next line of action known after consultations.
The organisation added that the reports of Abukakar’s agents, who refused to sign the final results of the primaries, would also influence his decision on the matter.
Although the statement was silent on what the defeated aspirant would do, it submitted that he should not be written off based on the result of the primaries.
Already, as part of the consultations, Abubakar has met with a former military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida; the immediate, National Security Adviser, Lt.-Gen. Aliyu Gusau(retd.) and the Governor of Kwara State, Dr. Bukola Saraki.
Abubakar had been picked by the Nothern Political Leaders Forum ahead of Babangida, Aliyu and Saraki as the consensus candidate of the North.
A source close to the meeting told our correspondent that the former vice-president, was advised to concede defeat to Jonathan
He claimed that Abubakar expresed his displeasure with the congratulatory letter Babangida sent to the President for winning the primaries.
Abubakar, it was further learnt, felt that that it was too early for Babangida to have written such a letter without hearing from other pro-zoning aspirants.
The source said, “Abubakar felt betrayed that Babangida could do such a thing without his knowledge since he was personally at the venue of the primaries.
“He also felt that since all of them took a position on zoning together, which was one of the campaign topics of the group, he should then have waited for them to meet and take a common stand.”
However, the former military dictator was said to have defended himself by saying that he took his decision in order not to heat up the polity and that he was old enough to know what was good for him.
Babangida, in the letter in which he described Jonathan’s victory as a landslide, urged the President to be magnanimous in victory and also said though Abubakar lost, he put up a good fight.
Apart from IBB, the source said Gusau and Saraki wanted Abubakar to concede defeat to the President.
He said, “All of them want him to congratulate Jonathan in the spirit of sportsmanship, that is the situation within the camp of the group for now.
“We are not aware of all that and, therefore, we have nothing to say,” he added.
Abubakar is expected to meet with members of his campaign team on Monday (today).
The meeting is expected to review the primaries and the alleged loopholes that made his agents to decline to sign the final result sheets.
The spokesperson for Abubakar, Mallam Garba Shehu, confirmed the meeting, but declined to disclose the agenda.
Meanwhile, Jonathan has urged Nigerians to see themselves as one people in spite of their ethnic and religious differences.
Speaking at a church service to mark the 2011 Armed Forces Remembrance Day at the National Christian Centre in Abuja, the President said the country would not make much progress unless its citizens were united.
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