OPINION: Can Atiku Ever Become President?

Many Nigerian politicians polarize opinions, but no one does like the former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.

The former number-two man just recently declared his ambition for the presidency come 2015 General elections. He would be slugging it out with other candidates come 2015. But on which platform you might want to ask. This would be the third time the man popularly called Turaki Adamawa is throwing his political hat into the race of contesting for the exalted office of President having contested the 2007 and 2011 elections.

What are his chances? Well, he might be third time lucky. After all, the late Ghanaian President John Atta Mills won on his 3rd attempt. Many are of the opinion that the former Custom Chief is a master in the game of politics, but why does he always come off short? Why has the ultimate prize eluded him? Are they things he is not doing right?

Love or hate him, he sure has his strengths and in the same vein, his weaknesses are also glaring. He has taken good decisions but it is a given this man has made more mistakes. I think we should go back memory lane on the Atiku story. A sitting Vice President trying to upstage his boss from contesting his mandatory second tenure all for the singular reason that he was very popular among the then governors. That was the genesis of Atiku’s problems. Where are the Governors today? How do you beat a man at his own game? I mean beating a maverick like Obasanjo at his game?

He was given the presidential ticket of the defunct Action Congress but lost the presidency to the People’s Democratic Party candidate Umaru Yar Adua. What did Atiku do next? He defied the odds and decamped to his erstwhile home, the PDP. Atiku left the Party that sheltered and clothed him when it was shivering cold. Only if he had done otherwise! It was more like shame to you all that rooted for him during his travails with Obasanjo. You know how it is with the case of the underdog and oppressor? Many saw Atiku as the Underdog and Obasanjo as the oppressor.

The Media, Civil Society Organizations, Human Rights Groups and indeed the general public all cried for him. In the PDP, he met a brick wall in Goodluck Jonathan. Armed with the power of being an incumbent, hence, Atiku was roundly beaten during the Party’s primary election en route the 2011 Presidential elections. Immediately he headed back to the opposition with the merger of various parties into the APC.

Would Atiku ever be taken seriously? Can he wrestle the Presidential ticket from the Big shots in the party? What are really his stumbling blocks? Is he lacking in strategists? Who are his advisers? Hope he won’t be referred to as the President we never had? But seriously going back to seek a presidential ticket from the same place he deserted years ago sounds so awkward, but trust Nigeria politicians they would quickly point to the fact that there is no permanent friend or enemy but permanent interest.

As far as the interest is right, then the rest they say is history. But how sustainable is that? Should you be jumping from one party to the other all in the name of interest? This call to question the principles and ideology of such individual, after all, there are still some politicians known with a particular platform for years. Atiku should know that nothing ever blind the eyes of a man quicker than the touch of compromise. He should decide which particular platform he wants to stay once and for all and remain

with them, given the presidential ticket or not. It is not a must that he becomes President.

- by Clement Ogbemudia

Source: Legit.ng