Atiku is glibly offering restructuring and devolution of powers for economic renaissance, to buy their advocates, but no predator would restructure Nigeria or change the Constitution – for the unfounded fear of losing control. His offer of security also falls flat on logic. Someone who lightly recanted his condemnation of Deborah Samuel’s killers would not descend on terrorist Boko Haram, bandits, herdsmen, kidnapers and other Islamists ravaging the country!
By Emma Nwosu
Atiku Abubakar, Wazirin Adamawa, is not a unifier, as we are being persuaded to believe, by Paul Ibe, Raymond Dokpesi, Dino Melaye, Reno Omokri and other cronies, perhaps, for pecuniary considerations. Instead, he has all the traits of a bully and dictator. Unity is not called down by mouth. There are complex cultural, structural, economic and social preconditions, anchored on justice. Action speaks louder than words. And no one can give what he does not have.
A unifier is a man of justice and peace and of deep and complex knowledge of nation-building, who, among others, keeps faith, is humble and is willing to make sacrifice. Atiku Abubakar is none of that, in the real sense. His record gives him away as an utterly arrogant, cocky, combative, selfish and unprincipled man, who is adept in the selling of dummies and deception and has, seemingly, cast a spell on his counterparts who do not pay him in his own coins.
Atiku does not see Nigerians of other tribes and religions as co-equals of his people, the Fulani. He harbours the born-to-rule mentality and wants the Presidency to remain permanently with them, despite running it downhill. In the obsession, he has changed parties like clothing, without scruples, shopping for the Presidency, for 30 years now, though to no avail. As he failed, he would only support a Fulani, even against his own party. It is this born-to-rule mindset which orchestrates most of our crises as it did the political crises of the Western Region which precipitated the coup of January 1966 and subsequent events which have led Nigeria into the ditch.
In 1993, Atiku Abubakar competed with Chief M. K. O. Abiola and Alhaji Babagana Kingibe in the Social Democratic Party. In 2007, he crossed over to the Action Congress of Nigeria in search of the Presidential ticket. In 2011, it was the PDP. In 2015 it was the APC where he lost the ticket to General Buhari. In 2019, he shamelessly returned to the PDP (which he betrayed in 2015) for the same ticket, apparently, bought his way, but lost the presidential election to Buhari.
Atiku was disloyal to President Olusegun Obasanjo while serving as vice president and, in 2003, attempted to upstage and take over from him. More recently, in 2014, Atiku colluded with some Northern Governors to derail his party (the PDP) and Dr. Jonathan’s re-election, to force the Presidency back to the North, claiming that Jonathan had overstayed into the turn of the North. And he campaigned for General Buhari, a Fulani, who defeated Dr. Jonathan in 2015.
He has raised treachery by several notches by violating his party’s Constitution on the rotation of Presidential ticket between the North and the South to usurp the 2023 ticket, at the expense of the South-East, against his logic as the protagonist of rotation in 2015 and the beneficiary, as PDP presidential candidate (when it was the turn of the North) in 2019, without any challenge from the compliant South. He is a pretender who ate his cake and still wants to have it!
How could an irredentist, pretender and usurper, who would not respect his party’s Constitution and has never been loyal to any party he rode for the Presidency (ACN, APC & PDP) or to anybody, for that matter, be a unifier? Should a unifier even be in the presidential race at 76?
In his most recent ‘debacle of dummies’, Atiku set up a panel of 17 top party men to assist him to select the Vice Presidential candidate of the PDP, in the guise of carrying everybody along, whereas, he had made up his mind on Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, Governor of Delta State. This window dressing became clear when he turned down the panel’s wide split decision of 14:3, in favour of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, on the grounds that it was his prerogative to choose the running mate. Why set up the panel, in the first place, if not deception?
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To save the boat of his campaign for the Presidency, the ‘maradona’ might still sell another dummy, to reach an ‘agreement’ with Governor Nyesom Wike (after scheming him out on all fronts) but will never keep such an agreement (if he should win the Presidency) and would be shielded by the Constitution and by his people who control the party, the legislature and the judiciary. It is impossible for a selfish, crafty, parochial and insensitive person – who is lacking in conscience and respect for others and solely horse-trading for personal interest – to keep faith with people when in power. He is yet only the presidential candidate but has failed to keep his purported promise to have the chairmanship of the party relinquished to the South!
Atiku is glibly offering restructuring and devolution of powers for economic renaissance, to buy their advocates, but no predator would restructure Nigeria or change the Constitution – for the unfounded fear of losing control. His offer of security also falls flat on logic. Someone who lightly recanted his condemnation of Deborah Samuel’s killers would not descend on terrorist Boko Haram, bandits, herdsmen, kidnapers and other Islamists ravaging the country!
Unfortunately, as indomitable as he is, Governor Wike (like other notable Southern politicians, starting from Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe – who aligned with the Northern Peoples’ Congress, instead of the Action Group, in 1960) is still prevaricating and would not understand that both the APC and the PDP have been seized by his Northern counterparts and that he cannot move hand or leg in any of them. He has not even learnt from Governor Aminu Tambuwal (for whom he had sacrificed a lot, but who still dumped him at the PDP primaries, to facilitate the victory of Atiku) that the Fulani are united and implacable when it comes to the political control of Nigeria.
The best bet for Wike and Co. is to abandon the PDP for the burgeoning Labour Party. Wike’s perceived bullishness and impetuosity will never be forgiven by Atiku and his cohorts in the PDP. The APC has also been cornered and would not be accommodating either.
Why are Southern politicians always sentimental and servile to their Northern counterparts? When Bukola Saraki and Bala Mohammed and Co. traversed the country campaigning against the rotation of PDP presidential ticket to the South and when Atiku Abubakar despised the party’s Constitution and broke protocol to buy the nomination form before the whistle, followed by the events at the party primaries, Nyesom Wike and Co. should have reacted in the same way that Atiku and their Northern counterparts moved against Dr. Jonathan in 2014! There is no end to anguish until Southern politicians can check myopia and pecuniary interest to take and stand by hard decisions for geopolitical balance. No Southern region or individual can go it alone.