By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

NOBODY should mock Abubakar Atiku, former Vice-President of Nigeria, for his abiding love of Nigeria. His patriotism is a different hue from mine or yours, it is still patriotism.

You may not like him. It may ilk you that his commitment to project Atiku for President 2007 is unwavering. It is his undeniable democratic right. He is democratic in staying the course in these quests.

These should not result in name-calling. Worst are suggestions that after eight attempts at being President, he should stop. There no such provisions in our laws. But when it comes to Atiku, we throw everything at him, including his age.

We have been unfair to Atiku. Even people who are so corrupt that no matter how low the standards are, they fall under them, would accuse Atiku of corruption.

Atiku has suffered. Atiku has been almost all things to our democracy. Highlighting some of them could help in a fuller appreciation of the man:

1992 – He finished third in the primaries of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, finishing third. MKO Abiola, winner, and Babagana Kingibe were ahead of him. The transition ended with the annulment of the June 12 election, and the Abacha years. Atiku is in the 34th year of his quest to be the President of Nigeria.

A man of means, mangled in the mist and miss of political power, he has lost many economic bases, suffered betrayals, some would add and he betrayed others.

By 1999, Olusegun Obasanjo picked Atiku as his running mate in eight years of unstable steps that stunted Atiku’s politics in seeming permanence of unfulfilled expectations. Atiku had won the governorship of Adamawa State before Obasanjo picked him.

Would things have been different if he wasn’t Vice-President in 1999?

Atiku in this era, was the commander, chiefly, of Nigerian politics, controlled the National Assembly and the Governors were mainly loyal to him, not to the President.

His major contributions to sustaining the democracy that the likes of Tinubu are milking have included putting his feet down against Obasanjo’s third term ambition, and most likely life presidency.

Imagine Obasanjo still President of Nigeria in 2026! We have Atiku to thank in joining a focused National Assembly that shot down that ambition.

Some claim that was where Atiku began his long trek to becoming President. Others blame his alleged greed, which they say was demonstrated in Obasanjo’s first term, when he wanted only four years of Obasanjo.

Along the way, Atiku dumped the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and joined the 2015 forces that bragged about how they snatched power from Goodluck Jonathan to commence a devoted destruction of Nigeria, from “head to bottom”.

He was the presidential candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, the forebear of APC, in 2007. He was third behind Umaru Yar’Adua, and Muhammadu Buhari.

Atiku sneaked back to PDP in 2019 and lost to Buhari, his main obstacle in the 2015 APC presidential primaries. He took the PDP 2023 ticket and lost again, this time to Tinubu who had kept one promise since – to remove fuel subsidy.

The ruination of our country before our eyes by dubious characters who left nothing untouched has firmed up. They still delight in their years of dubiety.

All Progressives Congress, their party, with loud voices turned things upside down. The version of poverty they visited on Nigeria came with a memory wipe.

Who remembers that listless Buhari handed over at N198 per litre of petrol to Tinubu less than three years ago? Tinubu jumped in, removed subsidy – where are the savings from subsidy? – and have spent the whole-time bluffing about his nothingness.

Atiku shares the blames for the grinding of PDP to irrelevance. He thought the APC was gathering for him in 2015. The Lagos primaries that produced Buhari was the convention of forces that lied its way to power. Where are the renegade PDP governors who joined APC in droves?

The other day, Rotimi Amaechi boasted how his leadership of the Governors Forum was at the fore of the revolution that birthed APC. He was right. He was speaking to university law students.

Atiku today is battle worn. Tired, weighed down by the consequences of his actions, patriotism, and leaning on a garb of entitlement that he took to the African Democratic Congress, ADC, now under siege because in Tinubu we have a President who is scared stiff of running against other candidates.

Tinubu’s democracy means him deciding what happens to other political parties because he knows he has done so well in three years that he has nothing to campaign with.

We must thank Atiku for being a big voice for the opposition. He is among those who frighten Tinubu. Atiku made the ADC a platform formidable enough to accommodate Peter Obi and Musa Rabiu Kwankwaso.

Atiku has more he can do as we advance towards 2027. He has a chance to join in the coalition that will retire Tinubu in 2027. It will be a great service to Nigerians and he does not have to do It running for President.

The glory of the great man Atiku would be realised and more enduring in him as the man who rallied the resources, at great person sacrifice, to retrieve Nigeria from an uncertain course.

Atiku deserves no less an accolade.

Finally…

YESTERDAY’S success National Convention of the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, in Abuja that zoned the 2027 presidency to the South gave the party focus. The political realignments of Peter Obi and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso working together prove that Nigerians are ready to work for a better future. The work has just started.

WHEN I learnt former President Goodluck Jonathan has thrown or is about to throw his hat into the 2007 presidential race. I laughed. Jonathan has many hats to throw into our politics, but not 2007, in that manner. I can tell you someone, in the Jonathan family, who may be interested in running. The challenge would be a hat!

TENSION is building up in the Senate as the fight for who becomes the next Senate President intensifies. Adams Oshiomhole is not short on ideas, about how Obong Godswill Akpabio, current occupier of the seat, wants to manipulate the standing rules to be the only qualified candidate for the position. Please note, elections have not held, nobody knows where we would be in 2027, but people are planning the future – beyond the future.

SILENCE about the killings round the country does not mean they have stopped. Government has adopted “kinetic silence”, no more sympathy measures, no feeble threats that could annoy “our brothers”, and “prodigal sons”. Nigerians are being kidnapped, killed, kicked out of their ancestral homes. The news government likes is that there would be enough people left to vote in 2027.

FEMI Fani-Kayode is effusive in praise of South Africa’s “pan African” policies claiming they aligned with his values. Was his appointment to South Africa as Nigeria’s High Commissioner about Nigeria’s interests or his? South Africans seasonally announce serial xenophobic attacks on other Africans; Nigerians and their business are major targets. Attacks are now on. Tinubu’s mediator confirms that he is on South Africa's side. One day, Femi Fani-Kayode will think before talking – so help him, the Almighty.

A SIMILAR bickering In the Nigeria Governors Forum, NGF, in 2014, as the current one, snowballed into the fractionalisation of the Forum and PDP’s loss of the presidency. More than 30 APC Governor are fighting over who leads them. Each group claims its powers to dig into the dispute is from the President. Could the disarray in among the Governors be why Tinubu is so scared about 2027?

•ISIGUZO is a major commentator on minor issues.

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