By Emma Nwosu
Olusegun Adegoke, in his opinion published at page 13 of The Guardian of January 26, 2023, titled “Who, Between Atiku and Tinubu fits CEO of Nigeria”, raised a few of the germane criteria but gave the answers, wrongly, in favour of Atiku Abubakar – even giving him credit for what is due to the most distinguished President Nigeria has ever had, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, under whom Atiku was only a Vice President.
You have to define the issues to get the job description from which to determine the job specification or profile of the person to be hired – based, primarily, on the person’s character and verifiable track record, from previous employment and referees, evidencing capacity and competence for higher responsibility.
The issues include multi-dimensional injustice, nepotism, insecurity, corruption, profligacy, economic crisis and cabals of vampires on the state. The economy is in tatters and we are at the threshold of the debt trap. We are more divided along ethnic and religious lines, today, than ever before, and so on. Such issues call for a clean, humble, compassionate, selfless person of prudence and grit, with stupendous physical, mental and spiritual energy and records. How, on earth, does Atiku fit the bill?
Atiku Abubakar, Wazirin Adamawa, is
as controversial and unqualified as Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to be the Chief
Executive Officer (President) of Nigeria. Do not mind the deceptive
mudslinging, buck passing, and trading of blames which only confirm their
mutual culpability. There is nothing to choose between Atiku and Tinubu and
between their parties (APC and PDP). Only the gullible and ignorant still root
for them.
Records portray Atiku as a wolf in sheep’s clothing; as a bully
and as a cocky, unreliable politician rather than the unifier his cronies are
packaging him to look like. It is just that most Nigerians (particularly,
gullible Southern leaders, easily overwhelmed by individual benefit, at the
expense of corporate interest) do not read between the lines and he was never
paid in his coins until the PDP Integrity Group reacted.
Atiku is the archetypical Fulani supremacist, with the
born-to-rule mentality, who has been changing parties like clothing, just for
him or another Fulani to be president – in a country of many eminent ethnic
groups. Now, he aims to succeed Muhammadu Buhari (a Fulani, whom he helped to
power in 2015, against his own party) despite Buhari’s abysmal performance and
despite the Constitution of the PDP on rotation of the presidential ticket
between the North and the South – which he pretended to defend in 2014 when he
destabilized the party for fielding Dr. Jonathan, claiming that it was the turn
of the North.
It is the height of treachery and desperation for him to usurp
PDP’s 2023 presidential ticket, at the expense of the South, particularly, the
South-East which had been the most faithful stronghold of the party, thereby,
destabilizing the party again and thereby displayed lack of the humility to
make correction to reunite it.
Without
that stronghold and other constituencies sympathetic to it, Atiku will lose the
election. Should he be assisted to manipulate and win (as amplified by the
conspiracy serialized by Peter Omonua in The Guardian of January 11, 12 and 13,
2023), Southerners would finally realise that the future is irredeemably grim
for them in the union. The world is watching.
In addition to the character issues, Atiku has never been the
chief executive officer of a state, which is the microcosm and most reliable
test for the Presidency, contrary to Adegoke’s argument anchored on his role as
vice president. Although he won the governorship of Adamawa State, in 1999, he
preferred the vice presidency that was simultaneously offered to him.
As for Tinubu, his celebrated internal revenue generation in Lagos
State, as governor, is outweighed by his severance package which is scandalous
and has become the template for other retiring governors. Almost 20 years after
leaving office, he still dictates who becomes anything in governing the state.
The public debt and annual budgets of Lagos State are greater than those of the rest of South-West states combined – without commensurate output. Lagos is ranked the second worst city to live in the world, with dismal human development indices. Not even pipe borne water is available.
Most of the
infrastructure and utilities to boast of were left by the Federal Government
and Alhaji Lateef Jakande, who governed the state from 1979 to 1983 and
demonstrated (in just four years) what an El Dorado Lagos State could truly
become if resources were prudently and consistently deployed. Remarkable
developments in the state since the Fourth Republic can be counted on the
fingers and would seem ridiculous in cost.
As Adewole Adebayo, SDP presidential candidate, would say: “money
is not scarce, what is scarce is compassion”. Revenue generation can only be
celebrated by visible benefits to the people and not in nominal terms.
Atiku and Tinubu share in fragmented and limited formal education. It is
largely for this shortage that they are over-dependent on aides, just like
Buhari. Atiku only managed to earn a diploma in law and Tinubu a degree in
accounting, a very long time ago. Neither Atiku – who lightly recanted his
condemnation of Deborah Samuel’s killers – nor Tinubu, who succumbed to
all-Muslims ticket, can descend on terrorist Boko Haram, bandits, herdsmen,
kidnapers and other Islamists ravaging the country. None of them will
restructure the federation. Tinubu no longer counts it as a major issue. Atiku
will be hindered by the unfounded fear of Northern leadership losing control of
Nigeria.
The youths are the true majority shareholders and backbone of the
Nigerian enterprise and should be calling the shots. Yet, they are the butt of
injustice. Nobody bothers about them. Not even their education is cared for.
Now that they have reached the yield point and have awakened, many Nigerians
are standing with them to chase out the old guard for a new lease of life.
It is the youths who are at the vanguard of the raving tech
revolution. They are the ones brimming with ideas and energy and breaking new
grounds in science and technology, commerce and industry, arts and culture,
entertainment and sports and in elections and appointments around the world.
They are the ones still giving Nigeria some positive mention on the global
stage. They are the ones to defend the country and lay down their lives in the
event of aggression and are the ones facing insurgents – from Boko Haram to
bandits to Unknown Gunmen.
*Nwosu is a commentator on public issues
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