OPINION: Atiku’s Diminishing Returns

If he’s still alive by 2027, Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, will vie for the presidency again! The presidency, no doubt, has become an obsession for which he will do anything- right or wrong!

Atiku has changed parties more than any other presidential hopeful in the country, moving from PDP to the ACN, then to the APC and going back again to the PDP with the vaulting ambition to grab the presidency. 

He was Nigeria’s vice president for eight years under President Olusegun Obasanjo, so he knows what it means to be president and he wants to be that number one citizen as long as he lives.

There’s nothing wrong with Atiku’s ambition to be president of Nigeria. Any normal person who has had the opportunities he’s had in life will certainly fancies himself sitting behind the president’s desk.

But the problem with Atiku’s ambition is the sense of entitlement that it carries with it. After serving eight years under Obasanjo as the most powerful VP in the history of the country, Atiku carries himself as the anointed president of Nigeria only waiting to be crowned. It is this ‘emilokan’ syndrome about him that has turned him into a plague afflicting Nigeria’s political atmosphere.

By insisting on running for president when the popular opinion was to allow southerners pick the ticket for the 2023 presidential election, Atiku put a sword in the spine of the PDP. He also demonstrated a lack of leadership capacity, rather than desire, to manage the fallout and prevent a dismemberment of the party.

Atiku has turned the PDP, a party that was once the ruling party in Nigeria, into a shadow of itself. It is now just one of the opposition parties while Atiku is not even the major opposition leader in the country. Atiku has turned the PDP into a party to put a northerner in power. There appears to be no strategy to his ambition beyond counting on the numerical strength of the north.

But the 2023 presidential election and the events since then have shown that Atiku did not heed the wisdom in leaving the stage when the ovation is loudest. Now he seems to be staring at the crowd moving towards the exit doors. The PDP is in tatters and no one appears to be interested in sewing the umbrella together again because of one man’s ambition to rule Nigeria.

Apart from a few state governors with doubtful loyalties to him, there doesn’t appear to be any other politician with clout around Atiku. They are leaving the PDP for him and his pay boys.

You may not like Nyesom Wike’s politics, but he was on the moral high horse when he fought Atiku in the days leading to the 2023 presidential election. He disparaged Atiku for taking the PDP presidential ticket when it was supposed to be the turn of the South. Wike succeeded in his campaign and took some PDP governors with him. Several other aggrieved party bigwigs also left the party.

Anyone who thought Atiku had learnt some lessons must be disappointed by the turn of events since after the election. Atiku has been unable to manage the crisis and bring everyone together so the party could play its role as an opposition party. The Turaki of Adamawa appears incapable of becoming a statesman and save his party from collapse by sacrificing his ambition and helping prop up another candidate against the ruling party in 2027.

Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, the national leader of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, recently revealed a desperate plot by Atiku to con some prominent northern clerics and political leaders into endorsing him again for the 2027 presidential election. In an interview with the Hausa Service of Radio France International, the former governor of Kano accused Atiku of lying to them that he had secured a deal with him and Peter Obi on the 2027 presidential election.

The deal, it was learnt, is for other presidential hopefuls like Kwankwaso and Obi to support him to win the presidency in 2027. He will then do only one term and the others will also do one term each! But Kwankwaso, also a foxy political mastermind, got the information and saw through Atiku’s ridiculous and desperate plot to grab power when he was informed.

Kwankwaso said: “I was deeply angered about the information. Elderly people aged 70 to 80 years will sit and lie, telling clerics and other leaders something that never happened,” Kwankwaso fumed in the interview. He condemned Atiku for lying because he wants power, saying he wants to form a government on the basis of lies.

As weighty as Kwankwaso’s claim against Atiku were, no prominent PDP member raised a voice in defence of Atiku. And neither did the party. Instead, Atiku scrapped a group together to respond to Kwankwaso. The group, with the fancy name of The Nigerian Youths for Atiku (NYFA), led by one Dare…, denied Kwankwaso’s allegation and warned him against denigrating the former Vp. It is pathetic.

Atiku has come to the point where the aura of power and influence has left him, and his charisma faded like the sun entering its twilight. It is time for those who have his ears to call him and pull those ears strongly and advise him to quit! He has come a long way as a politician and given his best. He was lucky to become Vp for eight years. The presidency is not a must. It’s time to save whatever remains of his reputation and integrity and quit running for president.

If he’s still interested in politics, this is the time for him to find a younger person who has what it takes to lead Nigeria and get the party to support the person.

The PDP should be the main opposition party in Nigeria, offering constructive criticism of the ruling party and providing policy and programme options. It should be a party that Nigerians can see as a viable and more effective alternative to the ruling party. But this is certainly not the case with the PDP, especially since 2023.

All efforts to resolve the crisis in the party have failed because Atiku still nurses the ambition to run in 2027 and he wants control of the structures of the party. He sees the current economic difficulties facing Nigerians due to the President Bola Tinubu administration’s reforms as an opportunity to have another shot at the presidency.

But Atiku may be exaggerating his influence in the polity. Someone needs to tell him to look in the mirror to see the real Atiku. He needed to appeal to Aminu Tambuwal to step down for him so he could defeat Nyesom Wike during the 2022 PDP Presidential primary.  

If he thought he would have the north in his bag, he got it wrong going by the vote tallies for the election. Even in his home state of Adamawa, he did not enjoy any mass support. There were 2, 186, 465 registered voters in the state but only 417,611 voted for him! He was beaten to second position in some states in the north too.

He has even squandered more goodwill by his deficient handling of events since after the elections. I have continued to wonder what leadership acumen the Turaki has when he can’t put his party together to rally behind him.

That is a clear indication of his diminishing returns, and a message that his time is up.

Tajudeen Suleiman is an Abuja based Journalist

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.

OPINION: Atiku’s Diminishing Returns is first published on The Whistler Newspaper