Atiku’s costly political mistakes

  The recent general election made it three times that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had contested for the presidency of Nigeria, albeit unsuccessfully. I do not want to add the other three times where his presidential ambition was stopped at the primary election level. Even as a sitting vice-president in 2007, his defeat at the polls […]

 

The recent general election made it three times that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had contested for the presidency of Nigeria, albeit unsuccessfully. I do not want to add the other three times where his presidential ambition was stopped at the primary election level.

Even as a sitting vice-president in 2007, his defeat at the polls was the worst that he had ever suffered in a general election. He garnered about two million votes and came a distant third position.

The 2023 presidential election has shown that Atiku is truly overrated in terms of political strategic thinking. If Atiku was a political strategist that most Nigerians erroneously thought that he was, he should have retained or sustained the Atiku/Peter Obi ticket for the 2023 presidential election knowing full well that Buhari would not be on the ballot.

If Atiku had made a solid commitment to Peter Obi to retain him as his running mate, a year to the primary election of the PDP, I do not think that Peter Obi would have gone ahead to purchase the presidential form or left the PDP.

Perhaps, Atiku underrated the contributions of Peter Obi in the 2019 election and that was why he was lukewarm or completely aversed to picking him as his running mate for the just concluded 2023 presidential election. Atiku in a press conference in the aftermath of the 2023 presidential election, had admitted that Peter Obi literally ate up the votes that should have been reserved for the PDP, yet he underrated Peter Obi and allowed him to leave the PDP.

Secondly, when Atiku opposed and worked against President Jonathan in 2015 in favour of Buhari, what was he thinking knowing full well that Buhari is a fellow northerner? If Atiku still nursed the ambition of becoming the president of Nigeria in 2015, didn’t he realize that Buhari was likely to spend eight years in the office? Between Jonathan who had only one term of four years in 2015 and Buhari who had a constitutionally-guaranteed two terms of eight years, who would have made his presidential ambition more realizable?

Third, in my previous article, I had pleaded with Atiku and the national chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, to accommodate the grievances of the G-5 governors. Unfortunately, my advice was not heeded and Atiku went into the presidential election with the overconfidence that the North would vote for him as one of their own.

If PDP had gone into the election as a united party, the result could have been different. That Atiku called the bluff of Peter Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso and the G-5 contributed to his loss.

By 2027, Atiku would be 80 years old. I do not expect to see him running for the presidency again. If he could not attain the position in his younger years, how would he convince Nigerians in 2027? What new message will he bring? His presidential quest will no longer excite many Nigerians in the future because he has become a recurring decimal in our political hemisphere.

From all indications, Atiku seems not destined for the presidency. Some of us from the south stuck out our necks and swam against the tide to support him for the 2023 presidential contest with the hope that northerners would support him.

 

Maduako, wrote from Owerri via [email protected]