The Atiku conundrum

Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has inspired many of my interventions on this space. In one popular piece that sent my set quivering in response to torrents of reaction via text messages with the rather ironic title “Defect, return and defect again,” I lampooned the man and his ilk, who have sold principles on the altar of power and just flow with the pendulum of power rather than stoically stick to a party or group where they have been driven by principle. The thesis was that politicians of these days are driven by power, not principle. Political behavioral comparisms were drawn with the days of yore when it was not difficult to delineate the ideological leanings of parties and those who formed them. It was easy to locate Chief Obafemi Awolow and his pre- civil war Action Group (AG) and post-war Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), a little to the left and the other parties to the right. The pre-war and post-war parties, up to the military truncation of democracy on the last day of 1983, had clear ideological posturing. Such inclinations have gone with the jackboots of the military and the hunger for power, which triggers defection in manners that make political historians chuckle. The fact is that politics of ideology is fast receding into oblivion, and may no longer stand as a plausible reason to chastise a politician in this clime. The parties are not founded on political ideology, which is why all them are half-empty or half-full. There is no distinct ideological mark to distinguish them, except their membership. Therefore, membership of parties is largely driven by interest and not ideology. In Imo state, Governor Rochas Okorocha rode on the back of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to power and now finds succour in the ruling party, leaving the party that brought him to power in the lurch. The governor of Katsina, Rt. Hon. Aminu Masari, who was former Speaker of the House of Representatives, was comfortable in the arms of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before the exigency of political reality drove him to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). His immediate successor in the House, Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, now governor of Sokoto State, wears same shoes as Masari. Examples are replete, such that you can count those who have not shifted camps on your fingers. Even President Muhhamadu Buhari has had his round of movements, except that all the parties he stepped into found him a worthy flag-bearer. The point must be made that those of us, including yours sincerely, who have placed Atiku Abubakar on the slaughter slab for changing parties, have been unduly unfair to him. We have singled him out as though he was a lone actor in a band of political chameleons. It may not be right or even moral but it appears that politics in our clime has distanced itself from morals. I do not throw my little weight behind that development, but we should not make Atiku the scapegoat in a pervasive occurrence in the political environment.
The motive behind Atiku’s latest move is as open as a blank sheet of paper. He wants to be the President of Nigeria and the signs are closed in the party to which he has turned his back. The obvious writing on the wall is that President Buhari will run again in 2019. Atiku has seen it and chosen to make hay in his political career while the sun still shines. National leader of APC, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, may have aimed to hold Atiku back when he said Buhari would not get automatic ticket to fly the party’s flag in 2019. But Atiku is too schooled in politics and the intrigues therein to know that the party leader had made a political statement, when the reality is that the President has the right to indicate lack of interest on the ticket before it becomes an all-comers matter. Atiku has seen where the ticket is headed and so took an early exit, one that would give him the time to ingrain himself in another party and do what it takes to get the ticket. No one will deny that Atiku has never hidden his hunger for that position. People may not remember that Atiku was the bag bearer (euphemism for follower) of the late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, who was whiskers away from the Presidency before Abacha sent him to prison. It was to Atiku that the political machinery that drove that move was bequeathed. Atiku actually moved to vie for the PDP primary in Jos in 1999. His subsequent political undertakings are well known to everyone who follows developments in that sector. The reality today is that Atiku is the most prepared presidential aspirant in the land. His experience and preparedness are second to none. His name has actually been on the ballot box twice for the job. It would be hypocritical for anyone to say Atiku has not pursued his desire with tenacity just like Buhari did. I am mindful that there may have been agreements that nudged him into the current ruling party, which may have been jettisoned after he had deployed his vast resources in helping the party come to power. He has hit the road yet again in pursuit of his ambition. The only tar of stain his opponents have held against him is that he is corrupt. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo came close to such conclusions in his book, My Watch, where he relayed some issues concerning his presidency. I am in the middle of reading Prof. Wole Soyinka’s memoirs, You Must Set Forth at Dawn, 11 years after its publication, and I have come to terms with the glaring fact, after perusing the encounter between Soyinka and Obasanjo in the throes of the civil war, after Soyinka had visited Biafra and what Obasanjo wrote in My Command, his book on the war, that Obasanjo stands truth on its head, sometimes, when it serves his purpose. I will, therefore, not swallow what he wrote about Atiku, hook, line and sinker. Atiku has since thrown an open challenge to the Nigerian people, “anyone who has evidence of corruption against me should come forward with it,” a bet no one has taken, not even government.
The government should do so and not play the politics of blood wherein his means of livelihood at the ports is now under the hammer. In my view, Atiku is one of the most consistent and most prepared presidential aspirants. But his chance against Buhari and his ability to get the ticket of a formidable party as the PDP is a different kettle of fish.