By Mike Ikhariale
Barely 20 months into the present administration that is yet to find its feet in terms of purposeful governance, some people who routinely profit from the nation’s political misfortune are already talking mischievously about 2027!
The premature cacophony apparently started with some disgruntled northern federal legislators who have naively played themselves out of some powerful select-caucuses that surreptitiously run the National Assembly and are now seeking attention by resorting to the hackneyed regional political blackmailing cards that have unfairly served them materially for years but all at the expense of their own people.
In the fruitless and obviously selfish debates between George
Akume, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Abubakar Atiku, a
perennial contestant for the presidency since 2003, over the merit or demerit
of the troubling tax reforms vis-a-vis the north and then began setting the
exit timeframe for the administration of President Tinubu as if they alone have
the monopoly to decide who becomes the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,
it has become pretty clear that Atiku still harbors the baseless hope of
becoming president in Nigeria after more than half a dozen previous failed
efforts.
The troubling thing about the whole debate is that it is the
same parasitic members of the Nigerian ruling elite who have unconscionably
contributed to the failure of the Nigerian State that are also making this
divisive and unpatriotic arguments.
Of particular interest is the case of Atiku who still thinks
that the Presidency of Nigeria is an integral part of his personal inheritance,
whether divinely revealed or concocted to him by the famous marabouts who are
allegedly Atiku’s main source of his delusional aspirations to be the President
of Nigeria, somehow, someday, even after he selfishly truncated the PDP’s
agreement to cede power to the South after Buhari’s woeful reign and, in
particular, to pass it to the South-East region in the interests equity and
fairness. Atiku now talking about the “power of the people” to decide who rules
them is a futile exercise in hypocrisy as he has never harkened to the voice of
the people.
As a reminder, we said this about him in 2018 and we are in
extenso saying it again today, Atiku’s political time has expired: “Once again,
the nation’s political theatre is getting choked by a motley crowd of presidential
aspirants who all strongly believe it is their time to contest for the
much-coveted constitutional prize of the Presidency. Because we operate a
multi-party pluralistic constitutional democracy, we should always expect a
congested field of contestants at every election cycle even though in reality
many will never afford to get off the starting block – the non-starters.
Abubakar Atiku, the Turaki Adamawa, an unmistakably towering
personality in the crowded Nigerian presidential race has already missed a
life-time opportunity to be President because, as they say, ‘opportunity comes
but once.’ Atiku himself seems to recognise that fact when he recently said
that he is not desperate to become President because he had the chance to grab
it in 2003 and he was right. He did jettison it. He was absolutely unbeatable
that year due to a combination of several positive factors that have now
vanished, but he gave it up cheaply.
His then boss,
President Obasanjo, due to his undue militarist approaches and his arrogant
‘I-know-it-all’ mentality actually lost effective control of the PDP structure
ab initio; sharp cloak and dagger intrigues and endless intra-party crises that
were made worse by the orchestrated impeachment threats that continuously hung
over him like the sword of Damocles, not to mention his debilitating feuds with
state Governors over ‘Resource Control’ and other petty schisms, seriously
exposed his weak political underbelly. The totality of those debilitative
conflicts made Obasanjo extremely vulnerable, pretty much like a ‘Lame Duck’.
On the contrary, his deputy, Atiku, commanded considerable loyalty and respect
nation-wide due to his congenial approach to party issues.
Atiku was fully in charge of the economy which was then
undergoing major ‘Deregulation’ and ‘Privatization’ reforms while Obasanjo was
busy gallivanting around the world capitals. There were persistent allegations
that the V-P was greedily enriching himself; disbursing patronages in exchange
for the recipient’s political loyalty; making friends and building political
structures and a nation-wide alliance during the period. When the time finally
came for second term declaration and Obasanjo dilly-dallied over naming him as
his running mate, it was like the coast was unwittingly cleared for Atiku to
enter the race on his own.
What really made him that thick then? Well, there is the
border-towns saying that there is ‘no poor Customs man.’ And for a man who made
his career in the corruption-infested Customs Service, Atiku surely perfected
his way around the under-the-table money-making labyrinths of the famous
“Long-Room” and to subsequently be named the ‘overseer’ of the nation’s economy
in august capacity as VP was an unchecked opportunity to amass stupendous
personal wealth, a financial war chest, large enough to easily torpedo the then
OBJ fledging political structure.
Some have claimed that Atiku was, in the circumstance,
over-ambitious, an allegation that was often buttressed by the fact that he
once divorced one of his wives just to create an arithmetical vacancy within
the Koranic conjugal prescription of maximum of four wives per husband. If he
could so easily dispose of a wife in order to marry another, his adversaries
suggest, it would not be too difficult for him to also disloyally overthrow
Obasanjo for his own personal ambition. There were also the lingering
allegations that Obasanjo’s seeming political travails were largely the
surreptitious handiworks of Atiku.
With him in the palace coup plot were several dissatisfied PDP
Governors, the so-called ‘Young Turks,’ who were prepared to pour all their
States’ Convention Delegates as well as tons of money into the Atiku ticket.
Then a roving juggernaut, Atiku was emboldened in his bid by the powerful late
Gen Yar’ Adua’s PDM, a well-oiled and battle-ready political machine.
Nothing could have stopped him from realising his presidential
dream that year but for the last-minute desperate intervention, some would say,
humiliating pleas, of Chief Tony Annenih, the then PDP Chairman and ‘Fixer’
together with a few loyalists who tearfully persuaded Atiku to forego his bid.
In the meantime, Obasanjo was, for all practical purposes, politically
liquidated and for that unique humiliation, ‘the coast has been cleared’ he
went berserk with anger and he has probably remained bitter ever since.
Atiku’s loyalists were utterly disappointed by the development
while Obasanjo and some northern elements who saw Atiku’s meteoric rise as a
likely obstacle to their own ambitions were, on the contrary, jubilant.
Needless to say, that many of the ‘mutinous’ Governors expectedly thereafter
became permanent guests of the EFCC. From that moment on, and in spite of his
illustrious pedigree as a former gubernatorial candidate in the old Gongola
State (now Adamawa and Yola), a presidential candidate in 1992, Governor-elect
in 1998 and finally Vice-President 1999-2007, it became clear that Atiku’s
fate lies elsewhere, quite far away from the Nigerian presidency.”
In sum, it is obvious that Atiku’s personal credibility level
has since dipped while the size of his political henchmen has diminished due
to his incessant flirtation with so many incompatible political parties,
suggesting uncontrollable personal desperation. His predatory role in
truncating the chances of the southeast at the presidency in 2023 and in the
process tanking the bright electoral opportunity of the PDP that was thus
poised to replace the woefully under-performed APC government under Buhari may
well be the final nail on his political coffin. He should gracefully accept
that he has lost his presidential opportunity long ago and then retire to his
preferred Dubai because an elder who joins little children to be hunting rabbit
in the forest is only inviting insults unto himself.
*Prof Ikhariale is a commentator on public
issues
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