2019: Is Buhari, Atiku face-off imminent?

The defection of former Vice President Abubukar Atiku to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has set the tone for the 2019 presidential race in the country. TOPE SUNDAY writes on Atiku’s political odyssey and the imminent face-off between him and President Muhammadu Buhari.
The official defection of the former Vice President, Alhaji Abubukar Atiku, back to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has set the tone for the 2019 presidential race in the country. TOPE SUNDAY, however, writes on Atiku’s political odyssey and the imminent face-off between him and President Muhammadu Buhari.
After many months of speculation, hearsay and denials, the former Vice President, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, last Sunday returned to his former political party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from the ruling All Progressives Party (APC), which he had joined in 2014 in the hope of actualising his long-held presidential ambition. However, his aspiration did not see the light of the day as the incumbent President, Muhammadu Buhari, clinched the presidential ticket of the party.
Since then, Atiku had remained one of the political leaders of the party until November 24 when he officially announced his resignation from the APC on the grounds that the party has greatly derailed from the original focus and intentions in governance.
His resignation from the APC has, however, laid credence to the assumptions that he has a frosty relationship with President Buhari over his perceived neglect by the president and the party, which he fought tooth and nail to install.

The man Atiku
Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the Waziri Adamawa, a politician, businessman and philanthropist, was born on November 25, 1946 in Adamawa State. He had a twenty-year career with the Nigeria Customs Service, where he rose to the position of the Deputy Director, the then second highest position in the Service. He retired in April 1989 and turned to a full-time businessman and politician.
Alhaji Atiku is a co-founder of Intels, an oil servicing business with extensive operations in Nigeria and abroad. He is also the founder of Adama Beverages Limited, and the American University of Nigeria (AUN), both in Yola, Adamawa State.

His political odyssey
Alhaji Atiku’s first shot at the presidency dates back to 1992 when he contested the presidential primaries of the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) alongside Late M.K.O Abiola and Babagana Kingibe. Though Atiku came third in the convention’s primaries but later stepped down for M.K.O Abiola, who won the run-off, he clearly announced his presence in the Nigerian political space in a big way.
With his support, which earned Abiola the presidential ticket of the then SDP, he was in an unwritten agreement to be M.K.O’s running mate. Abiola, however, jettisoned the Atiku’s choice and announced Babagana Kingibe, the runner-up in the primary, as his running mate.
Also, in1998 Atiku launched a bid for the governorship of Adamawa State on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). He won the December 1998 elections, but before he could be sworn in he was tapped by the PDP’s presidential candidate, former Head of State, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, as his Vice-Presidential candidate. The Obasanjo-Atiku ticket won the 27 February 1999 presidential election with 62.78 percent of the votes cast.
On 25th November 2006, the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, expectedly announced that he would run for president under the People’ Democratic Party (PDP). Upon his discovery that the coast was not clear for him in the PDP, he moved over to the Action Congress (AC), a party he jointly put together between himself and Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu. Atiku emerged as the presidential candidate of the defunct Action Congress (AC).
In the election, he came third, behind the PDP candidate, Umaru Yar’Adua and the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, with approximately 7 percent of the 2.6 million votes.
Consequently, Atiku returned back to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and in October 2010, he announced his intention to contest for the Presidency. On 22 November 2010, a Committee of Northern Elders selected him as the Northern Consensus Candidate, over the former Military President, Ibrahim Babangida, former National Security Adviser, Aliyu Gusau, and Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State.
In January 2011, Atiku contested for the Presidential ticket of his party alongside President Jonathan and Sarah Jubril, and lost the primaries, garnering only 805 votes from the delegates as against the 2,736 votes secured by President Jonathan.
On 2 February 2014, Atiku left the Peoples’ Democratic Party along with five five serving governors and some others that formed the nPDP and joined the newly formed All Progressives Congress, where he contested for the APC’s presidential ticket alongside the current President, Muhammadu Buhari, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Rochas Okorocha and Sam Nda- Isaiah, but came a distant third behind Kwankwaso and Buhari in that order.

Atiku’s farewell to APC
The resignation of the former Vice President from the APC did not come as a surprise to many because Atiku some months ago via his social media handle had reminded the president of some of his electioneering promises. He said that Buhari was elected based on his promises to fight corruption and bring about the needed change.
In a tweet on his social media handle, the former Vice President had said: ‘l’m sure he takes this very seriously. President @MBuhari was elected on a platform of change and anti-corruption. I’m sure he takes this very seriously,” the tweet reads.
But the crux of Atiku’s grievances with Buhari and the APC was brought to the fore when he officially resigned from the party, when he said: “On the19th of December, 2013, I received members of the All Progressives Congress at my house in Abuja. They had come to appeal to me to join their party after my party, the Peoples Democratic Party, had become factionalized as a result of the special convention of August 31, 2013.
“The fractionalization of the Peoples Democratic Party on August 31, 2013 had left me in a situation where I was, with several other loyal party members, in limbo, not knowing which of the parallel executives of the party was the legitimate leadership.
“It was under this cloud that members of the APC made the appeal to me to join their party, with the promise that the injustices and failure to abide by its own constitution which had dogged the then PDP, would not be replicated in the APC and with the assurance that the vision other founding fathers and I had for the PDP could be actualized through the All Progressives Congress.
“It was on the basis of this invitation and the assurances made to me that I, being party-less at that time, due to the fractionalization of my party, accepted on February 2, 2014, the hand of fellowship given to me by the All Progressives Congress.
“On that day, I said “it is the struggle for democracy and constitutionalism and service to my country and my people that are driving my choice and my decision” to accept the invitation to join the All Progressives Congress.
“Like you, I said that because I believed that we had finally seen the beginnings of the rebirth of the new Nigeria of our dreams which would work for all of us, old and young.
“However, events of the intervening years have shown that like any other human and like many other Nigerians, I was fallible. While other parties have purged themselves of the arbitrariness and unconstitutionality that led to fractionalization, the All Progressives Congress has adopted those same practices and even gone beyond them to institute a regime of a draconian clampdown on all forms of democracy within the party and the government it produced.
“Only last year, a governor produced by the party wrote a secret memorandum to the president which ended up being leaked. In that memo, he admitted that the All Progressives Congress had ‘not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected overnight ‘change’ but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of governance’.
“Of the party itself, that same governor said ‘Mr. President, Sir Your relationship with the national leadership of the party, both the formal (NWC) and informal (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso), and former Governors of ANPP, PDP (that joined us) and ACN, is perceived by most observers to be at best frosty. Many of them are aggrieved due to what they consider total absence of consultations with them on your part and those you have assigned such duties.
“Since that memorandum was written up until today, nothing has been done to reverse the treatment meted out to those of us invited to join the All Progressives Congress on the strength of a promise that has proven to be false. If anything, those behaviours have actually worsened.
“But more importantly, the party we put in place has failed and continues to fail our people, especially our young people. How can we have a federal cabinet without even one single youth. A party that does not take the youth into account is a dying party. The future belongs to young people.
“I admit that I and others, who accepted the invitation to join the APC, were eager to make positive changes for our country that we fell for a mirage. Can you blame us for wanting to put a speedy end to the sufferings of the masses of our people?
“Be that as it may be, after due consultation with my God, my family, my supporters and the Nigerian people whom I meet in all walks of life, I, Atiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa, hereby tender my resignation from the All Progressives Congress while I take time to ponder my future”.

His declaration for PDP
Shortly after the PDP’s leadership tussle was resolved by the apex court, some stalwarts of the party have been appealing to the former members, who had pitched their tents with the APC to return ‘home’ and Alhaji Atiku alongside other prominent politicians fall in this category.
One of aspirants for the chairmanship position of the party, Chief Bode George, recently described Atiku as a landlord in the PDP and urged him to return to the party.
“The former vice president is a landlord in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as he was among the G-34 that established it. In the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku is just a tenant that can be kicked out any time the landlord wants.
“But in the PDP, nobody can kick Atiku out because he has laboured for the establishment of the party. Just because your house is leaking, you cannot abandon it and move to a rented house,” he said.
However, in a live broadcast on his official Facebook account on Sunday to announce his return to the PDP, Atiku corroborated Chief Bode George’s assertion that he was one of the founding fathers of the PDP and it was a house he co-built with others.
Adducing reasons for returning to the PDP, Atiku said: “Some of you know I was elected Vice President under banner of the PDP, which is a political party I helped create some 10 years ago. Some of you may also know I left the PDP four years ago when I believed it was no longer aligned to principles of equity, democracy and social justice upon which we founded it.
“I joined the APC because I had hoped it would be the new force that will help new life of our people. I was excited about the party manifesto to create 3 million new jobs a year. The result has not been the change people have been promised or voted for.
“In the last two years almost 3m Nigerians have lost their jobs and today we record 25 percent of people the age of 19-25 yrs unemployed and we can see how difficult it is for youths to find job. The key to creating job is a strong economy that is why we are currently lacking.
“Today, I want to let you know I am retiring to the PDP because the issue that led me to leave has been resolved and it is clear that the APC has let Nigerians down rather they have given a long political speech on this matter”.

His presidential ambition
Though there is no official declaration yet on the presidential aspiration of the former Vice President, it is widely believed that Atiku may be gunning for the PDP’s presidential ticket come 2019.
Back in April this year, the body language and utterances of the Waziri Adamawa had hinted that he may participate in the 2019 presidential race.
At the launch of a national newspaper, the former Vice President had said: “Controversies have sometimes threatened the very existence of our country. The country is truly at a crossroad and things are made worse by the cocktail of economic, social and political problems which we have had to contend with.
“Poor GDP growth rate, millions of school age children, out of school–I believe with the right kind of leadership, the right kind of vision, we can transform this country in less than eight years.
“When I first went to Dubai in 2007, none of the infrastructure that you see today in Dubai was there but because there was vision, leadership, look at where they are today – We can do it”.
Also, the Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi’s recent interview that he (Makarfi) could still contest the party’s presidential ticket in spite of the defection of the former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, to the party, has also hinted at the presidential ambition of the former number citizen of Nigeria.
Makarfi, in an interview with ‘The Interview magazine”, had said, “Atiku left before, he’s on his way back before the (party’s) convention. I have heard the rumour and it has been there since 2007…I have thought of it. By the time I leave as caretaker committee chairman on 9th or 10th, there’ll still be ten months to the party primaries. By any law or the party’s guidelines, I’m not excluded.”

His imminent face-off with Buhari
As it were, there are no categorical statements that Buhari would be seeking re-election despite the gale of endorsements by his supporters and loyalists who include state governors and his supporting group, Buhari Support Group. But the President in the far-away Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, last week, dropped hints that he may seek a second term in office as 2019 general elections draw nearer.
The President at an interactive session with the Nigerian community in Cote d’Ivoire, had said: “First, I want to apologize for keeping you for too long seating, this is because I insisted on the governors attending this meeting. This is why I came along with them so that when we are going to meet you and when you are going to meet the rest of Nigerians, if you tell them that their governors were in the accompany of the president, I think that will be another vote for me in the future. I’m very pleased that they were able to turn up”.
If Atiku by sheer providence clinches the presidential ticket of the PDP and Buhari declares to seek re-election, the duo will be slugging it out for the third time.
Their first encounter was in 2003 when Buhari contested on the platform of the defunct ANPP against former President Olusegun of the PDP and Atiku was the Vice President and the running mate in the election. Buhari lost the election.
Also, they were both presidential candidates in the 2007 election. While Buhari stood in for the election on the platform of the ANPP, Atiku belonged to the defunct ACN. However, they both lost the election to late Umar Musa Yar’ Adua of the PDP.
In the bid up to the 2015 general elections, they both contested the presidential ticket of the APC and Buhari won the primary election. Now that another page in their quest for power is about to open, the duo are in for another showdown in another battle of wits. Their acrimony and political differences were not well pronounced before now. But with the first salvo fired by Atiku against Buhari and his government coupled with the responses from the Presidency and the APC against the former Vice President, the face-off between them is imminent.
Following Atiku’s exit from the APC and his criticisms against Buhari’s government, the Presidency came hard on the former Vice President and described him as a politician living on the past glory, adding that he has lost his political weight many years ago.
The Personal Assistant to the President on Social Media, Mrs Lauretta Onochie, said come 2019 presidential election, the former Vice President can’t win election in his own Local Government in Adamawa State. Onochie, who claimed that President Muhammadu Buhari was not at the moment competing with Atiku, said the former VP had lost touch with reality and advised him to ‘check again’.
She said: “The president is not perturbed at all, he is not moved in any way. Alhaji Atiku is known to hobnob from one party to the other when he cannot have the control of the party. When he resigned from the PDP some years ago, he gave the same reasons he gave so many years ago and that’s what he has given again for leaving the APC.
“He (Atiku) may have had that weight some years ago but over the years, he’s been losing that weight and at the moment, I can tell you that even in his local government area in his native Adamawa, he can’t win any election. So where is the weight?
“I think Alhaji Abubakar Atiku has lost touch with reality; I think he needs to check again. President Buhari is not competing with him at the moment, what he’s trying to do is to put President Buhari out of the good work he’s doing and to come to wallow in the mud with him”.
Even in the PDP, Atiku may not clinch the presidential ticket with ease considering that the likes of Sule Lamido, Ibrahim Hassan Damkwambo and most likely Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who is being rumoured may equally dumped the APC for the PDP to realise his presidential ambition are on queue to vie for the ticket.
In the next couples of days, weeks and months to come, the theatre of war, tirades and allegations and counter allegations are imminent following their presidential ambition. But the shape it will take remains practically unknown for now.

Leave a Reply