When Will Atiku Quit Active Politics?
By Edwin E. Uhara
Immediately I heard that Nigeria's former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar has gone back to eat the food from the same pot he had rejected,
my first reaction was 'This is politics, where there is no permanent
enemy and friend, but, what is constantly permanent is interestâ€! If not
politics of 'permanent interestâ€, how can one explain the unfathomable
rationality behind the decision by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to go back to
Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu-controlled All Progressives Congress (APC),
looking at what the later did to him during and after the 2007
Presidential Election, when he took political refuge in the tent of the
defunct Action Congress (AC), while running away from a persecuting boss
in the PDP!
Honestly speaking, it was Alhaji Atiku that made the then AC a national
party when he moved his remaining political associates in all the
political parties including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All
Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) where
Senator Bola Tinubu, then Governor of Lagos State was the only AD
Governor that survived former President Olusengun Obasanjo's clampdown
on the party's dominance in the South West Geo-Political Zone in the
2003 General Elections! Some commentators were of the view that, Chief
Obasanjo decided to clampdown on the dominance of AD in the South West
region, because he wanted to prove a point to his political benefactors
who accused him of outright rejection by his people in the 1999 General
Elections, but, only to ride on their back to power in the said election
year. So, based on that reality coupled with the atmosphere of
uncertainties hanging over the their political future in
the 2007 General Elections, there was a compelling need for Tinubu, being
the remaining AD Governor and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar cum the retinue of
his supporters in PDP who were denied registration during the 2006 PDP
membership revalidation and registration exercise to find a new political
home! At the beginning, their new political party was named the Advanced
Congress of Democrats (ACD)! But, when the factions of the various
political parties in the country joined the alliance, the name of the
party changed to Action Congress (AC).
Even when the formation of AC was greatly influenced by Alhaji Atiku
Abubakar, it was the same Atiku that popularized the party across the
lengths and breaths of the country. In fact, I remember in 2007 when I was
contacted by the party's governorship candidate in Enugu State, Chief
Dubem Onyia to mobilize youths and students of tertiary institutions in
Enugu State to Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu, so as to welcome
Atiku Abubakar who was coming to the state for his Presidential Campaign!
At the campaign rally which took place at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium
Enugu, Senator Tinubu was never among those on Atiku's campaign train,
rather, it was Atiku and his running mate, Senator Ben Obi, former PDP
National Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, former Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Chief Tom Ikimi among other notable politicians that graced the Enugu
rally and the subsequent ones I personally monitored during the 2007
Presidential Election. Why some of us
supported Atiku then, was because we felt that, he was unjustly
persecuted by his boss! But, since he has failed to understand, that,
there is a time for everything under the sun and have decided to go
against this unchanging law of nature, which is binding on every
creation, and have also decided to challenge the Biblical 'David of our
timeâ€, which is President Good Luck Ebele Jonathan, some of us are
beginning to question the rationale behind his unflinching avarice for
power or in the words of Simon Kolawole of Cable Newspaper, his
'…Eternal Obsession with Aso Rockâ€.
To cut the whole story short, some of us are aware of what transpired
between Atiku and Tinubu during the 2007 Presidential Election; and how
Atiku became the lame duck of the Action Congress (AC) after the General
Elections, just because he could not install an AC governor in his home
state of Adamawa and the then outgoing governor of Lagos State Senator
Bola Ahmed Tinubu was able to install his then Chief of Staff, Babatunde
Raji Fashola as the governor of Lagos State. Tinubu and his loyalists
including Alhaji Lai Mohammed who once described Alhaji Atiku as the
'Bulwark of Nigerian Democracy†decided to sideline him in the party
where nobody heard anything from him until he tendered his resignation
letter and joined the ruling PDP. So, because of Atiku's inexplicable
quest for power, he decided to return to his former party, the ruling
People's Democratic Party (PDP) where his political wings were clipped
by President Good Luck Ebele Jonathan
at the party's primary. (This Jonathan dey toughooo)! Also, because of
the intimidating mass appeal President Good Luck Jonathan still enjoys in
the PDP and in Nigeria at large, Atiku decided to c