Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is indeed a political icon anytime, anywhere. He served under the party that was controversial and his position and the role he played in it was equally contentious. He had a running battle with his unforgiving boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for almost four years, ending up as a bitter loser who retired into oblivion to lick his self-inflicted wounds.
Everybody thought Atiku was finished and done with at the end of his political apogee which was neither colourful nor memorable. He came out of political hibernation only to join the newly-formed All Progressive Congress with an absolute intention of using it as a stepping stone for the actualisation of his long-established presidential ambition.
When he lost presidential nomination to Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari, a more resilient, dogged and tenacious contender, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar then seemed to have rested his inordinate ambition of becoming the nation’s strong man for good, until recently when he sprang a not-so-pleasant surprise by indicating that his apparently rested ambition is being resurrected.
He left no one in doubt that he is presenting himself once again to the masses as the possible replacement of Peoples’ President in 2019.
Nigerians were reminded of Atiku’s inexorable push for the presidency which started under the defunct Peoples Democratic Party, SDP in 1993, when he delivered a powerful speech full of insinuations and suggestions about his thinly-veiled intentions at a public lecture. The occasion was the presentation of a book titled ‘We Are All Biafrans’ by Chido Onumah, which took place in Abuja recently.
The central theme of his discourse was that Nigeria wasn’t working and the federation needed to be restructured.
In doing so, Alhaji Atiku hit President Buhari below the belt in order to present him in poor light and to score cheap political goal. He berated President Buhari’s style of leadership and ineffectual approach to solving the perennial economic crisis bedevilling the country. He had incorrectly assumed that the present leadership in the country was saddled with a leadership that is not prepared to learn from the past, and a leadership that is also not prepared to lead.
It is quite easy for Atiku Abubakar to now talk negatively about the country’s style of leadership at present. While it is extremely simple to fault much of what Atiku has said about President Buhari’s style of leadership or his proposal for revisiting the over-flogged issue of restructuring the country, it is equally difficult to condemn Buhari after twelve months in office because he had never made any commitment to restructure Nigeria during his presidential campaigns. His focus was on corruption, economy and insecurity.
A deeper understanding of Atiku’s vile utterances which have greatly embarrassed his party, will clearly show that they were intended to serve as his jaundiced assessment and review of President Buhari’s first year in office and a camouflaged proposal of what he would have done it he were the one at the helms. His speech was actually like an outline of his manifesto for a 2019 presidential race, which was intended to detract or detail the Buhari Administration.
Atiku’s vituperations against President Buhari were, therefore, baseless and malicious. The purpose of his unnecessary outbursts against President Buhari was simply to dent his image as he vainly hoped to warm himself into the hearts of his newfound political associates of the South-West who have for long been ardent advocates and enthusiasts of restructuring Nigeria.. Many people have been asking a pertinent question relating to his failure as a Vice-President for eight years to use his larger-than-life-clout to influence and actualise some of the things for which he is now criticising the incumbent president.
Atiku Abubakar should know more than anyone else that Nigerians have since discountenanced the idea of restructuring their country, knowing full well that the idea was only going to serve the selfish interest of certain groups in the country, and would therefore be a fruitless exercise that would negate the essence of the nation’s unity. President Buhari has recently responded negatively to strident calls from the South-West to revisit and adopt the recommendations of the 2014 National Constitutional Conference set up by his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.
Similarly, Nigeria’s past leaders, like Muhammadu Buhari, were totally opposed to any move that will culminate in restructuring the country. This was quite evidenced by the dismal failure of series of constitutional conferences organised for that purpose which have turned out to be preposterous and totally fruitless deliberations. Against that backdrop, therefore, Atiku’s proposal for restructuring cannot sail through without convening another wasteful national conference, similar to the one we have had in 2014 which had been a drainpipe, having guzzled billions of Naira without any tangible result.
It is indeed considered inappropriate and thoughtless for anyone to propose actions that would culminate in restructuring the country in accordance with the whims and caprices of particular people at a time when the country is seriously grappling with myriad of problems that threaten to bring it down. The issue of restructuring is therefore unfeasible and ill-advised at this time. Atiku should, therefore, be advised to stop flogging a dead horse.
