Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, attempts a preview of September 24 date for formal declaration of presidential ambition by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, throwing to the fore the issues and politics trailing the exercise.
Atiku
By Wednesday, September 24, when former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, would be making formal declaration on his presidential ambition, an impetus would have been added to the gradual but steady build-up to 2015 politics. The move will put to an end months of speculations on his political agenda.
A release from Garba Shehu, his media adviser, and made available to TheNiche, discloses that he will declare his intention to seek the ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for 2015 presidential election.
Atiku’s aspiration, according to the statement, is anchored on the need for reforming government, securing the people and reconciling the nation.
“This is not about me; it is about our young people. It is about Nigerians. It is their future, not the past. It is about reforming government, securing the people and reconciling the nation,” Atiku said.
He said that 2015 is special and a potential turning point in Nigeria’s history, adding that there is need to seize the moment to give every Nigerian a chance to help redefine Nigeria as a place for them and their children to prosper and feel safe.
The declaration will hardly come to many as a surprise. Atiku, for one, has hardly concealed his desire for the presidency since 1993 when he made his pronounced entry into national politics. At the Jos, Plateau State, presidential primaries of the then Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1993, Atiku, who had entered the race as a relatively dark horse, surprised many when he emerged third after MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in what was described as a keenly-contested exercise.
Though he had run for the office of governor in the old Gongola State (now Adamawa and Taraba states) in 1991, his stunning feat in 1993 was all he needed to announce his arrival at the national scene. Since then, the retired deputy director of Customs has not looked back.
Twice in recent time, he had tried to actualise the ambition without commensurate success. He had, for instance, run for the presidency in 2007 on the platform of the then Action Congress (AC). He also made unsuccessful bid for the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), in the run up to 2011 elections, losing to President Goodluck Jonathan.
In fact, when he staged a walk-out on the PDP convention in August alongside five governors last year, analysts had interpreted his action as being informed on a desire to move over to a platform on which he would realise his presidential dream.
The insinuation was that with the PDP space apparently seized by Jonathan’s men ahead of 2015, Atiku’s chances of running on the party’s ticket had been narrowed drastically. The option left for him was to opt out of the party or tag along and stagger into the presidential primaries, more or less a lame-duck, and get disgraced in what would be a repeat of the 2011 episode.
Atiku and his men were said to have chosen the former option; hence his entry into the APC did not come to perceptive analysts as a surprise.
Riding on APC storm
In his new platform, the former vice president seems to be at peace and comfortable, at least for now. TheNiche learnt during the week that a particular consideration that continues to fire his aspiration in APC is that he would not have to contend with the so-called incumbency factor at the party’s November primaries.
“He is going to run on the same field and on the same rules with other aspirants. Nobody would enjoy any undue advantage over the others. The battle is going to be on individual merit, power of conviction and network of contacts and acceptability,” a member of Atiku’s media team who pleaded anonymity confided in our reporter, last Wednesday.
What his supporters tout as his major strength in his renewed presidential bid is the clout that he has built in politics over the years. In fact, until Atiku and former President Olusegun Obasanjo got entangled in a suffocating feud in the build-up to the 2003 general election, the political clout of the former vice president had loomed large across the country.
Drawing immensely from the political craftsmanship and extensive network of the late Shehu Yar’Adua, his mentor, Atiku had, at the onset of the current political dispensation, sent signals of being among the politicians to reckon with in the land.
Launching himself on the wings of the then Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), the leadership of which he inherited following the death of Yar’Adua, the Turakin Adamawa clearly emerged as a strong factor in defining the tempo of PDP politics.
When eventually he left the governorship election that he had easily won in Adamawa for a vice presidential slot in 1999, it was seen as an attempt at marketing his intimidating credentials at the national level.
However, when his battle with Obasanjo began to take turns for the worst, enormous efforts were deployed by the highly vindictive former president to shoot down his towering influence.
Subsequent developments saw Atiku shuttling between PDP and the opposition. It is estimated that his clinching the APC ticket would provide an opportunity for him to bounce back and prove that he remains relevant in the nation’s politics.
The battle ahead
Even with the apparent comfort which the former vice president seems to be enjoying in APC, there are fears that his aspiration may not be a smooth sail, after all. His person and pedigree, the two major attributes working for him, are incidentally the two issues he has to contend with in the party, TheNiche gathered.
A man of means and extensive network of contacts, Atiku, according to sources, is being viewed by a section of the party’s leadership as one that may be too difficult and independent-minded to be controlled. While ordinary members of the party enthused at his entry into their fold some months back, the top hierachy of the party was said to have received his membership with cautious excitement.
Those who had interacted with him intimately in their days at the defunct AC, were said to have recalled with pains how he abandoned the party shortly after his failed adventure in the 2007 presidential election. Though efforts are said to be made at reducing that animosity, the suspicion that Atiku is in the party purely to appropriate its ticket for his presidential ambition still looms large.
“For those of us who have toiled day and night to nurture the party from the days of AC, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to this period of APC, there are latter day individuals we cannot openly celebrate as members that we can go to bed with and sleep with two eyes closed. We know those who are genuine and committed members and those who are merely seeing the party as platform for election purposes. They had fooled us before and may not have their way this time around. It is not for me to tell you where Atiku belongs between the two groups. But if you cast your mind back to 2007 and what happened thereafter, you will know where he falls into and what he should expect from us. Nobody is a fool. APC can never be a last resort for anybody. It is either you are with us wholly or you are not. There are no two ways about that,” fumed an official of the party at its Acme Lagos office.
Speaking in similar coded form, the party’s National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun, had, shortly after his election, given the impression that APC would not lay itself bare for any desperate aspirant to hijack its presidential ticket.
“APC has a fair selection of prominent Nigerians. We are listening to the people, and we are hearing what they are telling us because we have a dragnet spread out. We have people we are talking to all over the nation who are giving us vibes about what the people feel, want and expect. So, presenting a candidate in another two or three months will not be an issue,” he had assured reporters.
Some analysts had insinuated that Odigie-Oyegun’s comment might be a veiled reference to Atiku’s perceived ambition. But even if it was not, informed observers see what is seen as absence of internal democracy and culture of imposition in APC as another hurdle confronting the former vice president.
The party, since its metamorphosis from Alliance for Democracy (AD), AC, ACN to its current status, has not been known for conducting transparent and competitive primaries. Former All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), which also fused with ACN to form APC, did not also have enticing tradition of internal democracy. What virtually ran through them was a culture of imposition.
At the APC’s maiden convention in Abuja last June 13, it was obvious that the henchmen of the party had not departed from that odious path. Processes leading to emergence of Odigie-Oyegun and members of his executives were, for example, reportedly fraught with intrigues of the legacy parties that gave rise to APC. Former vice chairman of the party, Tom Ikimi, and former Borno State governor, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, cited incidences of high-handedness in the party and lack of transparency as reasons for leaving it for the PDP.
Both had blamed the domineering disposition of former Lagos State Governor, Senator Bola Tinubu, on the autocratic tendencies in the party. Others who had left the party earlier raised similar charges.
Curiously, Odigie-Oyegun, in his maiden outing after his election, had given indications that APC was not in a hurry to drop its imposition politics. He had said: “The APC has a constitution, and it states clearly that consensus is a preferred way of reaching decisions. Because all leaders would have subscribed to that consensus and everybody will be happy, that means nobody has everything he wants, but everybody has something. So we are able to live happily together.”
The touted happiness, critics of the party insist, is, in most cases, contrived and not real. Atiku, it is feared, may suffer this fate in the party’s presidential primaries. A major strategy, it is envisaged that may be employed in shooting down his ambition, will be the kite of his not having the electoral clout that can see the party squaring up against PDP in the event of Jonathan picking its presidential ticket.
Toying with the Buhari option
The consideration of mass appeal is what keen followers of APC politics say the party’s leadership may fly in ditching Atiku for former Military Head of State and CPC presidential candidate in 2011, Muhammadu Buhari. Atiku, TheNiche gathered, is popular among APC governors, especially the reform-minded ones and those that crossed over with him from PDP. He also has the attribute of liberal disposition, especially among the elite. But Buhari is seen as having more mass followership.
The thinking with APC hierarchy, our reporter learnt, is that the Jonathan men would be more brazen in riding roughshod over Atiku’s candidature at the poll than Buhari.
“They, of course, know that they cannot easily rig out Buhari this time around and get away with it. I am not saying that Atiku is not popular. But I see them easily running over him than they would do to Buhari because they know that Buhari has more active supporters who may not take it lightly,” an APC supporter, Ishaq Ahmed, told our reporter in a chat.
An aspirant and his time
Despite the apparent cloud of uncertainties surrounding his aspiration, Atiku, it has been learnt, is not looking back. A veteran of several political battles, many of which he has emerged triumphant, he is said to be resolute in going about the encounter.
He reportedly told close associates: “This is my time. I am the candidate of unity. The country needs healing.” For a man widely celebrated as a bridge-builder, he may really be the balm the country needs in its current moment of obvious stress. This may also be his time – perhaps the last time of active politicking.
Born on November 25, 1946, Atiku will be 69 next year. Age may not be on his side in 2019, the next election year after 2015, if he fails to make it this time around.
The New Atiku
TheNiche gathered during the week that the former vice president is anchoring his aspiration on a seven-point agenda, under the theme ‘The New Atiku’. The agenda covers education, security, infrastructure, governance, economy/job creation, health and the Diaspora.
Under security, he proposes to create a dedicated “counter-terrorism and intelligence division independent of security agencies of the state. This specialist division, it was learnt, will be backed by law in the National Assembly (NASS) and will be given a dedicated budget and powers to pursue the government’s counter-terrorism agenda.
Under Education, Atiku intends to introduce a league system of assessing performance of schools and incentivising performing ones in the areas of funding and grants, introducing innovative private sector funding methods through adoption of schools by corporate organisations in return for exemptions on taxes and levies, re-introducing school inspection and monitoring agencies independent of the Ministry of Education, and free education for children from deprived homes and re-introduction of comprehensive scholarship schemes and grants in tertiary institutions, among other striking educational reforms.
His agenda on infrastructure would see him strengthening and patronising the Nigerian infrastructure bank, as well as revitalising the Nigerian Infrastructure Fund.
His proposed reforms on governance will involve creation of new institutional framework for governance, building leadership around systems instead of individuals, and enhancing federalism. The agenda has more. Experts say they look good but will be dependent on Turakin Adamawa, first, getting his party’s ticket.
