By Ibrahim Habu Sulaiman Since the former VP ran for the presidency in 1993 under the Social Democratic Party, SDP and placed third behind late MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe respectively, Atiku Abubakar has always appeared at every other election in the country. His target has always been the presidency. It was therefore not surprising when he emerged as the PDP flagbearer for the 2019 general elections during the party’s primaries held in Port Harcourt recently.
To begin with, Who is Atiku Abubakar? Briefly, he is a business tycoon and politician, who first came to national acclaim when he ran for the presidency under the SDP in 1993. In 1998 he was elected governor of Adamawa State and subsequently nominated as Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s running mate for the 1999 presidential elections which the PDP won. During their second tenure, Abubakar’s relationship with his boss deteriorated to an abyss.
After parting ways with his boss at the end of the third republic in 2007, Abubakar first pitched his tent with the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN in order to realise his ambition of becoming the president. Eventually he lost at the general elections occupying a distant third position after the eventual winner, late president Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP and Muhammadu Buhari, then of the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP.
Actually it was during his tenure as VP Nigerians began to know who the man Atiku truly is. His first tenure with Obasanjo was rather not as eventful as the second tenure when he and his boss failed apart. It was then that Nigerians began to be fed gratis with news of how the VP was using his position to siphon millions (nay billions) of naira from various national agencies under his supervision to further enrich himself. His boss described him as an unrepentant looter of government treasury. In fact, Obasanjo wrote that God would never forgive him (or indeed any other Nigerian) if he should ever support Atiku for the presidency.
Alas birds of a feather flock together, as the saying goes. Today, Obasanjo has endorsed Atiku Abubakar after emerging the flagbearer of the PDP, a party whose membership card he had torn in public and sworn that he had retired from politics only to re-emerge as Buhari’s ardent critic. Perhaps it was because the coalition that Obasanjo pledged to put together as a prelude towards establishing a “third force” failed to materialise in his bid to bring an end to both APC and PDP dominance in Nigerian politics that he resolved to throw his weight behind his former VP. Is Atiku Abubakar now the kind of person with the right leadership qualities to rescue the country from the kind of decay OBJ said Buhari is further leading the country into? Of course the country has sunk into an abysmal depth.
But who are those responsible for all that? Statistics has shown that corruption has been at the root of the prevalent impoverishment of the people in Nigeria, now rated the highest in the world. The PDP has already accepted and apologised to Nigerians for being responsible for the mess the country found itself at the beginning of the APC administration in 2015. Indeed, if the PDP had survived the storm that swept them from power in 2015 Nigeria would have seized to exist as a united entity based on predictions by Western experts. They had boasted of going to rule the country for sixty years!
So what has changed since 2015? According to reports from the PDP presidential primaries held recently, Atiku has rediscovered his form in throwing away his millions of dollars to advantage. And where else other than with the PDP whose sixteen years in power was characterised by the worst corruption ever seen in the history of the country. The way and manner millions of US dollars were shared to delegates at the PDP primaries in Port Harcourt should inform us of what would become of a PDP government headed by Atiku Abubakar.
However, it would be misleading to portray the APC as a party of saints and angels. Voter apathy particularly by the youth who constitute over 60 percent of the electorate characterised the 2015 general election. The trend could rear its ugly head again. The emergence of Atiku after PDP’s presidential primaries might lead to more voters’ apathy. The masses of the population at the grassroots still remain largely in misery in spite of genuine efforts by the APC-led Federal Government to ameliorate the plight of the masses. During the first tenure of the Buhari administration farm activities improved across the country, although not all farmers benefitted directly from the government loans and other forms of assistance. It has been business as usual for the majority of farmers in many states. Moreover, in most states workers and particularly pensioners are largely dying in silence with no sign of reprieve in sight.
In Nasarawa State for instance, pensioners are like second class citizens denied their basic rights to life, allegedly due to lack of funds. Poverty has become the order of the day. Indeed, most people across the country are saying that there is no difference between the APC and the PDP. The apathy might persist through 2019 unless government at the centre does something urgently to change the inevitable. At any rate the recent reports that politicians from both the APC and PDP are involved in using cash to canvass for votes might greatly influence the outcome of events at the 2019 polls. Already there are reports that the PDP flagbearer is ready to throw around his billions of naira to ensure victory and the realisation of his lifelong ambition at the 2019 general elections.
Certainly PMB’s integrity, incorruptibility and patriotism rate him higher than most of the foremost presidential candidates we have today. Moreover the president’s war against corruption has endeared him into the hearts of millions of Nigerians who are tired of corruption (and being led by looters). In fact since emerging as his party’s flagbearer for 2019 elections, PMB has exhibited a determination to see the battle against corruption to its logical conclusion. This was demonstrated when he recently descended on some prominent Nigerians accused of various kinds of corruption in the country from travelling outside while investigation is going on. It is expected that the second tenure of the president would produce even better results in sha Allah in the fight against corruption, which the PDP administration was at sixes and sevens in tackling for 16 years.
The inability of the various PDP administrations since 1999 to effectively tackle corruption did not only impoverish millions of peace-loving Nigerians, but also led to the ousting of the PDP which had planned to rule the country for 60 years.
Of course, the APC administration at the centre needs to sit up in terms improving the economy for the benefit of the generality of Nigerians. This should mean that the federal government under the APC must realise that its source of strength lies in the masses of the population and not the few rich, whose basic interests are just self-aggrandisement. The war against corruption should only be a prelude towards establishing a sound economy whose dividends would be evenly distributed across all the classes of the society. For without equity and justice all the war against corruption would be brought to nought.
On security, PMB seems to have kept his word judging from the relative peace in the northeast. The administration has ensured that Boko Haram’s advances were checked. Similarly the various pro-Biafra organisations that reared their heads at the beginning of the APC administration, including the activities of the Niger Delta militants have been fully subdued.
So the campaign would be between the two leading contenders for the presidency – Atiku Abubakar of the opposition PDP and President Muhammadu Buhari of the governing APC and the economy would most likely be on focus. But for the whole process to be credible, it must be issues based and above all, peaceful.