Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, on Tuesday said he contested four times to become the governor of his state, before he finally won in 1999.

Atiku revealed this while interacting with leaders of his support groups from across the country in Abuja.

He said: “In joining politics, you have to be focused, principled and courageous. For example, I contested for the governorship position four times before I was finally elected. That is politics for you. You have to be determined and courageous.”

“It is encouraging that these days, I see many young people come to me declaring intentions to run for various political positions- some state assemblies, some National Assembly and even some aspiring to be governors.

“The beautiful thing is that this shows that our democracy is being strengthened. I also started early like many of you. I started in my late 30s. During our time, our direction was to fight the military and return the country to civil rule,” he said.

Atiku expressed gratitude to leaders of the support groups for the roles they played in the 2019 elections, describing them as patriots who mean well for the Nigerian state

“That we are more organized now is a reflection of the fact that we are now more experienced and with experience comes more knowledge and what that means is that if there was any mistake that we made last time, we are in a better position to avoid such mistakes now,” he added. (Vanguard)