By; ABDULLAHI BAYERO
Atiku Abubakar, Waziri Adamawa, the 77-year old presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP), in the 25th February, 2023, elections maybe an household name in the North, but he cannot lay claim to the 14 million followers of President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the region.
If anything, he symbolizes the sort of savagely self-serving professional politicians that Northerners and indeed all Nigerians have since started to shun. After a comfortable career in the ‘plum’ Nigeria Customs Service and more than three decades in politics, Atiku’s only legacies are lucrative private enterprises such as the American University of Nigeria Yola, Intels Logistics and Adama Beverages Limited, makers of Faro drinks.
To start with, the North-East geopolitical zone of the country would not vote for Atiku Abubakar because the former vice-president neglected the region when he was in office between 1999 and 2007.
He could not record eight projects in his home zone in those eight years to the extent that even the road to his village, Ganye in Jada Local Government Area of Adamawa State, was recently constructed by the APC government of President Buhari. Between 2009 and 2019 when Boko Haram terrorists held sway especially in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, Atiku lived more abroad than at home and could not orchestrate any coordinated assistance using his celebrated clout at the national and international arenas.
Atiku Abubakar’s sixth and hopefully last shot at Nigeria’s presidency does not also enjoy the sympathy of the other geopolitical zones in the region. Perennial political peregrination has never been a respected practice in Northern politics. In 1993, he contested the Social Democratic Party presidential primaries losing to M.K.O. Abiola and Babagana Kingibe.
He was a presidential candidate of the Action Congress in the 2007 presidential election coming in third to Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP and Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP. He contested the presidential primaries of the PDP during the 2011 presidential election losing out to President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2014, he joined APC ahead of the 2015 presidential election and contested the presidential primaries losing to Buhari. In 2017, he returned to the PDP and was the party’s presidential candidate during the 2019 presidential election, again losing to incumbent President Buhari.
To win this time, the former vice-president has tried to define himself as the northern candidate in the coming presidential elections. At the start of the campaigns in October 2022, he told the Arewa Town-hall Policy Dialogue in Kaduna that Northerners do not need an Igbo or Yoruba as president but “someone from the North.”
According to him, “I think what the average northerner needs is somebody who is from the north and who also understands the other parts of Nigeria and who has been able to build bridges across the rest of the country. This is what the northerner needs. He doesn’t need a Yoruba candidate or an Igbo candidate.” The era of divide-and-rule politics is over. How can someone campaigning as a unifier utter such anti-North and anti-unity claims?
Thus, while the Waziri Adamawa believes his path to power lies in the north, winning majority of the votes in the region would not be possible for the PDP candidate. He would have to contend not only against his two main opponents, Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, he would also have to tame the rising profile of Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso-led New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP). His worst weakness, however, is the terrible track-record in delivering the dividends of democracy to the people.
Voters in the northwest region are still groaning and mourning over the multiple tragedies including the debilitating economic situation and devastating security condition traced back to the PDP’s 16 locust years in power. Their embittered disposition is unlikely to translate into votes for the former vice-president. In particular, the populous states of Kano, Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Niger and Jigawa are all APC aficionados.
Any candidate who sees nothing wrong with the awful and pathetic state of affairs in the north is not worth voting for. The underdevelopment in the north was foisted by such northern leaders. In other words, the north undeveloped the north. Over the decades, the north has been held down by leaders of northern extraction who presided over Nigeria and saw nothing wrong with endemic poverty and misery culture. The coming polls promise to put paid to that.
Atiku’s condemnation of the APC’s Muslim-Muslim ticket is clearly a case of sour grapes because it makes Tinubu a strong candidate in the Muslim north. In contrast, the PDP’s religiously diverse ticket hasn’t earned him the same robust political mileage in Christian-dominated parts of the north. Rather, the Labour Party’s Peter Obi is more favourably looked upon among some northern Christians.
The North is the most backward in Nigeria judging from any developmental index. Based on the three Human Development Indexes, (HDI), namely life expectancy, education and per capita income, it is obvious that virtually all the states in the North fall below the HDI of 0.539 as of 2019. How would the region develop with a mass of illiterate citizenry? How do we turn this ugly scenario around other than by electing dedicated, progressive, visionary and committed leaders at both the federal and state levels?
The North is re-thinking and seeking a way out of the underdevelopment quagmire. It is no longer clinging onto the old attitudes that have failed the people. The 2023 general elections provide a historic opportunity for it to seek to change the unenviable narrative. The North is ready for a political paradigm shift. It intends to inject a new life into the leadership of the region and nation.
Like the leopard and its stubborn spots, Atiku cannot change his character of callous disregard for ordinary citizens. Only recently, he called on the Federal Government to not extend the deadline for the transition to the newly designed currency notes despite the outcry especially among the unbanked rural dwellers that constitute the bulk of the population of the North.
This call is reminiscent of his appeal for the repeal of Sharia law introduced after public demand by some Northern states with overwhelming Muslim majorities. It is also a flagrant violation of the religious and cultural rights of citizens as contained in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and extant universal conventions.
However, Atiku’s most pathetic political promise is the release of Nnamdi Kanu, founder of the IPOB and a worse perpetrator of atrocities against Northerners than even Chukwuemeka Ojukwu during his 30-months civil war. What manner of justice rewards aggressors and fails to even acknowledge the deaths and destruction meted on the victims? Would he offer the same treatment to Boko Haram’s Abubakar Shekau and similar terrorists or is this just a depraved pitch by a desperate do-or-die politician?
As if these travesties are not evil enough, the PDP contender also promised to do a single term in the presidency and hand-over to an Igbo candidate in 2027. This is the most undemocratic declaration ever made by a contestant in any democracy. How can a single candidate speak for the whole North and declare where his own successor would emerge even before his own election?
In the final days to voting, Atiku plans to unleash all manners of religious and tribal sentiments to sway voters in the North. Unfortunately for him, the North has since written him off as an untrustworthy and dishonest person not worthy of their bulk support. As an observer put it “Atiku thinks Buhari just woke up to get 14 million votes in the kitty from a section of the country because of ethnicity? No. Buhari built a legacy of honesty and forthrightness over the years while Atiku’s legacies are direct opposites of these.”
In 1999 at the launching of a book on Sa’adu Zungur written by Prof. M.A. Yakubu, the current Chairman of INEC at Arewa House in Kaduna, Atiku as the Vice President of Nigeria and the most senior political office holder from the North in the Federal Government at that time publicly pilloried all Northern leaders. He told his bewildered audience that the Northern leaders and elders were the people who failed the North and the nation. He said they were the ones who had caused the problems.
The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) in its recent statement declared that Atiku has no credentials to be a sole Northern presidential candidate. Their reason is that he has not been seen as somebody who is close to the North because he has not been fair to us. He is somebody having his base outside the North. According to Alhaji Seidu Baba, a founding member of the NEF, Northerners commonly view Atiku as an untrustworthy and dishonest person who does not deserve their massive votes during the 2023 poll.
Abdullahi Bayero writes from Kaduna
