2027 Presidency: Atiku’s Political Naivety Beggars Belief

 By Olu Fasan

Atiku Abubakar, former vice president, made his sixth attempt to become Nigeria’s president last year, 30 years after his first foray into presidential politics in 1993. He failed. However, God sparing his life, Atiku wants to make his seventh attempt in 2027, aged 80.

*Atiku 
Leaving aside the age for the moment, what does Atiku think will change in Nigeria’s political landscape in 2027 to make his putative seventh attempt different from his previous six attempts? Simply put, nothing! We are students of our own experience after the event. But Atiku seems to have learned nothing from his past failed presidential bids.

Of course, Atiku will say the 2023 presidential election was anything but free, fair and transparent. I won’t disagree. Perhaps more than any other commentator, I have been utterly vociferous in saying that last year’s presidential poll lacked credibility. I share Professor Attahiru Jega’s recent assertion that some politicians “may have infiltrated and truncated” the INEC Result Viewing, IReV, portal during the presidential election, and I endorse his call for an investigation “to get to the root of what happened with the IReV.”

Yet, no serious contestant facing a ruthless, take-no-prisoners candidate of the ruling party should be starry-eyed. More importantly, no serious presidential candidate can afford to have chink in their armour; none can afford to haemorrhage votes: every vote matters. But, truth be told, Atiku was the weakest of the three leading candidates in last year’s presidential poll. Well, here’s why.

First, Atiku went into the election with a deeply divided party, even though history tells us that divided parties rarely win elections. He and the self-conceited Iyorchia Ayu, PDP’s then national chairman, deluded themselves into thinking that the five renegade PDP governors, led by then Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, and their allied “Integrity Group” would have little impact on the party’s electoral chances. They ignored the lesson of history. In 2015, a divided PDP, with five renegade governors and several dissident party leaders, including Atiku himself, contributed hugely to President Jonathan’s defeat. History lesson 101: divided parties rarely win elections!

Second, Atiku ignored the zeitgeist of the time. He went against the grain of public opinion, especially in the South, that another Northerner should not succeed President Buhari. Yet, Atiku was so confident of his winnability that he rode roughshod over the logic of rotational presidency. In 2022, he told his party: “I already have 11 million votes.” He was referring to the 11,262,978 votes he got in the 2019 presidential election. But 5,707,393 of those votes, a clear majority, came from the South. Those 5.7million Southern votes were certainly not bankable for Atiku in 2023, given the rebellion in the PDP’s Southern axis, his own unpopular Northern candidature, and the emergence of Peter Obi as a powerful third force. 

Yet, Atiku was complacent. For instance, when asked about Obi’s defection from the PDP and the “OBI-dients” phenomenon, Atiku said: “It is very difficult to expect a miracle to happen simply because Peter Obi is in the Labour Party.” He was utterly wrong. Going by INEC’s final results, Obi secured 6,101,533 (25.4%) of the vote against Atiku’s 6,984,520 (29%)! But why was Atiku as cool as a cucumber about the presidential election? Why was he so confident?

Well, here’s the third factor. He erroneously calculated that with Buhari not running in 2023, the Hausa/Fulani votes would gravitate to him, despite lacking Buhari’s personality cult. For instance, Atiku was asked if he was concerned that Bola Tinubu picked Kashim Shettima as his running mate, given he and Shettima are from the North-East. He replied: “If you know the composition of the North-East, you have Borno and Yobe, these are essentially two Kanuri states. Then, you have the other (four) states, which are essentially Hausa/Fulani states. Even if people are going to vote on that basis, I have a more favourable position from the North-East.” 

Essentially, Atiku was playing the ethnic card. He must have thought that the Hausa/Fulani would also prefer him to a Yoruba presidential candidate. But the conventional wisdom is that the Hausa/Fulani put religion above ethnicity, while the Yoruba put ethnicity above religion. So, instead of supporting Atiku, the Supreme Council of Sharia in Nigeria, SCSN, mobilised the Muslim-North for Tinubu’s Muslim-Muslim ticket. In that respect, while playing a religious card is utterly perverse and unpatriotic, Tinubu outsmarted Atiku with his Muslim-Muslim ticket. As Nasir el-Rufai, former Kaduna State governor, famously said, Tinubu stood absolutely no chance of winning the election without a Muslim-Muslim ticket!

In addition to the above, Atiku has a track record of flaky and fluid party loyalty. He’s as much a serial defector as he’s a serial presidential-election aspirant or candidate. From PDP, where he was vice-president for eight years, he defected to the then Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, in 2006; he returned to PDP in 2007, only to defect to APC in 2014; and then back in PDP in 2017. All in search of a platform for his presidential ambition.

In 2018, BusinessDay published a front-page story entitled: “Battle for 2019 set as PDP merges with 39 parties.” According to the story, the “new party”, known as “Coalition of United Political Parties, CUPP”, would present one presidential candidate to dislodge Buhari from Aso Rock. Atiku was the arrowhead. But no such party emerged. Well, there are talks of another “mega party”. Professor Pat Utomi, who leads the National Consultative Front, recently said that Atiku, Obi, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, have agreed to form a merger party. Then, Atiku said: “I am ready to lead the coalition against Tinubu in 2027.” But why him? 

Of course, Atiku will dismiss concerns about his age, 80 in 2027, pointing to President Biden, who is running for re-election at the same age. But beyond Atiku’s age, none of the factors that militated against his presidential bid in 2023 will go away in 2027. The PDP’s future is bleak. Some of its current governors will defect to APC. Wike’s old G-5 and “Integrity Group” will continue to work against him. The South won’t warm to his seventh attempt, and unless the Muslim-North deserts Tinubu in 2027, Atiku can’t guarantee their support either. The noblest cause for Atiku is to support a credible presidential candidate in 2027 and abandon his purported seventh attempt. It would be politically naïve to do otherwise!

*Fasan is a commentator on public issues