Atiku and his vaulting ambition

IF you are an ardent football fan, and your favourite team has a prolific goal scorer who is desperate to join another club in the coming season against the wishes of the fans, you are likely to see several brutal banner messages aimed at the player, expressing the fans’ utter displeasure. Such banners read like this, “I don’t cry for those who leave. I’m happy for those who stay”. Another banner reads, “No one is above the club’s interest, no matter who they are”. As it’s in football, sometimes the same applies in politics, especially when a known politician dumps the party that has given him so much.                         

Many politicians have destroyed their own lives and left no worthy legacy to remember them for because of their vaulting ambition to occupy the highest office in the land. Not knowing when to quit becomes their undoing. That’s why Nigerian politics has  always recycled a set of jaded politicians with less than honourable performance to their name. If it’s easy to read a man’s inscrutable mind, it will not be unkind to say that former vice president Atiku Abubakar may be having a sober reflection of his journey in politics. He may be in deep sorrow and frustration right now.

Recent happenings that warranted his decision to resign his membership of the People’s Democratic party(PDP) last week must have weighed heavily on his mind. His resignation made front page headlines. It also unleashed a wave of commentaries. Many of his associates welcome it, while some mocked him, describing his decision as good riddance. In a letter addressed to the PDP chairman, Jada 1 ward,  Jada Local Government Area of Adamawa state, Atiku sounded so emotional but pained over his decision to leave the party. He stated that his decision was with “heavy heart, and stressed that he “recognized the irreconcilable differences” that have emerged in the party.

He wished the party and its leadership the best in the future. Any keen observer of what is happening in the PDP(and much more will happen in the months ahead), shouldn’t be surprised by Atiku’s exit. PDP is one political party severely hit by internal and external forces. Don’t be deceived by what its acting National Chairman Amb. Umar and other chieftains of party said after Atiku’s resignation. They know PDP has become almost irrelevant two years before the 2027 general election. All of  this is part of the machination for the re-election of President Bola Tinubu. The Labour Party is another party that has been infiltrated by the powers that be to achieve the same agenda. Peter Obi is the main target.

But the question is: Should anyone cry for Atiku’s exit from the PDP? His present travails reminds me of, “Don’t cry for me Argentina”, a song recorded by Julie Covington from the 1976 concert Album Evita. The song was written and composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice while the duo were researching on the life of Eva Peron, then the powerful First Lady of Argentina. Like Atiku’s resignation letter, Eva Peron’s speech delivered from the balcony of the Casa Rosada,  didn’t only convey a message of defiance and love for her country, it also acknowledges her political ambition and the “mad existence” she led.

The lyrics of the song, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, are a masterful blend of sincerity and political maneuvering, showcasing a complex mix of personal reflection, political strategy and heartfelt plea despite the complexities of her legacy. As it relates to Atiku, breaking away from a party he was a founding member, is not new. His exit from PDP to the African Democratic Congress(ADC), is about the 4th time he would change political platforms since 2011.  At 78, this may not be Atiku’s swan song before retirement from partisan politics. Take no credit away from this man, but the complexity of his vaulting ambition is killing him.

Let’s go back in time. Driven by his vaulting ambition, in 2013, Atiku was the arrowhead of the breakaway PDP known as the ‘New PDP’  with Abubakar Kawu Baraje as Chairman. Seven PDP governors, 22 senators and 57 members of the House of Representatives were in the New PDP. The governors were: Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi(Rivers), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso(Kano), Murtala Nyako(Adamawa), Babangida Aliyu(Niger), Aliyu Wamakko(Sokoto), Sule Lamido(Jigawa), and Abdulfatah Ahmed(Kwara).

The group had walked out of the PDP National Convention at Eagles Square in August, 2013. Bamanga Tukur, the National Chairman of the party was accused of arbitrariness and high-handedness. Baraje claimed the group was forced to leave  PDP as a result of dangerous permutations, ahead of the 2015 general election with the official approval of  President Goodluck Jonathan. The festering  internal crisis in PDP today is a replay of what happened in the party in 2013. This time around, spearheaded by the trio of Nyesom Wike, Sen. Samuel Anyanwu with the tacit support of Damagun, the acting National Chairman

The sealing of the national secretariat of the party in Abuja two months ago, smells of external influence  to render PDP irrelevant before the next election. Back to Atiku and his vaulting ambition. Having succeeded in factionalising the PDP in 2013, and after the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) had rejected recognising the ‘New PDP’, Atiku defected to the All Progressive Congress(APC) to contest the 2015 presidential election for the fourth time in his political career. He said his decision was based on “months of consultations with political associates”. He formally declared for aspiration on Sept. 24, 2014, and said that 2015 would be a “special and potential turning point in Nigeria’s history…”

He  failed to seize the moment. It was Muhammadu Buhari who did. At the party’s Convention  in Lagos on December 10, 2014,  Buhari trounced Atiku by polling 3,430 votes. Atiku came a distant third with 954 votes, trailing Kwankwaso who came second with 974 votes. It was another ambition extinguished. Before that hammer blow in 2014, Atiku had been in and out of the PDP in a desperate move to actualise his presidential ambition. When he returned to the PDP  in 2011, after another failed attempt on the platform of  the Action Congress of Nigeria(ACN), he was granted a waiver to contest for the presidency one more time. In the primaries in January 2011, he was roundly defeated by the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan who scored 3,542 votes to Atiku’s 805.

Again, Atiku returned to the PDP two years after the 2015 election and picked the party’s ticket at the convention in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, with Mr. Peter as running mate for the 2019 election. Though Atiku picked the PDP ticket for the 2023 election, he was defeated by Bola  Tinubu of the APC. It may be recalled that Atiku’s presidential aspiration began in 1992 during the botched 3rd republic on the platform of the Social Democratic Party(SDP), one of the two political parties decreed into existence by the military junta led by Gen. Ibrahim Babangida in 1989 ahead of the 1993 election.

At the SDP primaries in Jos, 1992, Atiku said he was prevailed on by his late political mentor, Musa Yar’Adua to step down for MKO Abiola. But after Abiola had chosen Babagana Kingibe as his running mate, Atiku felt like a man in turmoil. He lamented in an interview how Abiola reneged on an earlier agreement to make him his running mate in the June 12 1993 election  widely believed to have been won by Abiola, but was annulled by the military regime.

All of this speaks volumes about Atiku’s obsession with his ambition to become  President of Nigeria. The question is: what is Atiku’s next move after leaving the PDP for the ADC? Is his ambition driven by selfish interest or a burning desire to serve the country? With time fast approaching for political parties to choose their presidential candidates, will ADC skew its process to favour a particular aspirant, or will the party provide a level playing ground for all aspirants?

Should we believe Sen. David Mark, the interim National Chairman of ADC that the party has no ‘preferred’ presidential aspirant? The leadership of the party needs reminding that any attempt to field its candidate from the North in 2027, it will be game over for the party even before the first ballot is cast. APC is waiting and expecting that such a  mistake will be made by the ADC alliance. Having almost destroyed the PDP and LP, and with the panic in the APC camp following the unveiling of ADC, the ruling party will leave no stone unturned, including using the courts(if necessary) to mess up the ADC and its leadership so that President Tinubu will have an easy ride in 2027. That’s not democracy. It is a one-party state.

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