The recent public endorsement of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 general election, by Hon Yakubu Dogara, former Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, must have come to many as a surprise. This is going by the position of the former Speaker on the inequity and disunity posed by the ticket of his party — the All Progressives Congress, APC, whose presidential candidate, Alhaji Ahmed Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba Southern Muslim, has chosen Alhaji Kashim Shettima, a Northern Muslim, to be his running mate for the same election. And the resolve of Northern Christians to vote for equity, fairness, unity and inclusivity in the 2023 general election apart from personal integrity and competence of the candidates and their parties’ policies.
The candidature of Alhaji Atiku of the PDP does little to be as fair, just and equitable as the APC’s. Both are insensitive to the Christian North and the South reasonably.
We will explain as we progress.
Whereas both Dogara and Hon Babachir Lawal, former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, belong to the same APC as Tinubu, they had distanced themselves from it’s Muslim- Muslim ticket, insisting that it’s uninclusive, divisive, unfair to Christians, especially of Northern extraction, unjust and insensitive to the unity of the nation among others.
After intentional discussions, debates and discourses by Dogara and Lawal and Northern Christian leaders , including the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, they had resolved to support a presidential ticket based on fairness, religious inclusion, capacity, competence and integrity — free from corruption, drugs and other entanglements , as well as party policies and pedigree . Even CAN has been upbeat educating the Church to vote in defence of their faith and for the unity of the country. Does Alhaji Atiku fulfil this criteria? I do not think so. The reasons are many why Atiku doesn’t fit into the portrait of a candidate to be supported by CAN . Or to be endorsed by Dogara, if he wasn’t simply grandstanding all along, pretentiously following Lawal as if they were both speaking and representing Northern Christians. Only Lawal is, going by Dogara’s mischief.
How would a support for Atiku favour Northern Christians when he quickly pulled down his tweet condemning the killing of Miss Deborah Samuel, by some fanatical Muslim students of Shehu Shagari College of Education Sokoto, for alleged blasphemy, because he wanted to be politically correct. A man who failed to be courageous to stand up for justice and truth can hardly defend the Christian Northerners when it matters most, as we see it happening today with President Muhammadu Buhari, PMB.
It’s on record that the current regime has done little to protect Christian minorities of the North from the hands of Fulani invaders who want to run them over in their homelands. In Southern Kaduna alone, for instance, over 1000 ordinary and unarmed civilians had been killed under Governor Nasir el Rufai without the state or Federal Government intervening : by way of arrests, prosecution of the killers who are mostly Fulani Herdsmen, or by way of beefing up security for the victims , or by way of compensation, or by way of positive reassurance that it will never happen again. The victims will simply lament, moan and bury their dead.. waiting for another round. And that has been the lot of the Christian minorities of Southern Kaduna, Southern Borno, the Middle Belt and the Plateau. As we write, scores of villages on the Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba have been annihilated , conquered and taken over by Fulani Herders. They are in search of grazing lands . But they are now more of an army of occupation. Atiku being one of them can hardly do better than PMB. Is Dogara unaware of these dangerous political shenanigans happening among his brethren in Northern Nigeria? And that another eight years of Atiku presidency, will deepen the hurt on his brethren. It’s not practicable that his support for Atiku will assuage this evil? If anybody is in doubt, such a person should ask Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.
Besides, supporting Atiku means that Dogara is against the unity of this country . The logic is simple. POWER rotation is between the North and the South of the country. This has been the agreed practice since 1999, though not a constitutional matter, but moral and political correctness . Atiku agrees with it too because in 2015, he told President Goodluck Jonathan, then sitting President to step down for power to return to the North. It was also on that basis that he engineered a pull out of some governors of the PDP, who were, still are, of late Yar’Adua political family, which he, Atiku, leads till date. Is Atiku now saying that the retention of power in the North would enhance the UNITY of Nigeria? The answer is NO. Discerning Northern and Southern leaders are in agreement that Nigeria’s UNITY can only be guaranteed based on equity, fairness and justice. And this can only be achieved when power is shared between north and south. Nobody loves to be dominated, as Atiku is trying to make the Fulani appear. His ambition to extend the North’s hold on power after PMB is to disunite Nigeria. Dogara’s endorsement of such eggregerous ambition is wierd and perverse , and a failure in right thinking.
According to Pa Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, Pan Yoruba socio-cultural group , neither Atiku nor Tinubu should be voted for in 2023, because they have nothing to offer Nigerians. This is the naked truth. These two candidates represent the worst of our political order, as could be attested by those who followed the primaries that produced them. The primaries were dollarized, and the highest bidders caught the delegates. One of the contenders with Atiku told journalists after the primary that only few people can remember their father’s name at the sight of DOLLARS. He was bemoaning the way the Delegates were all bought over by the winners. Can such winners fight corruption that has crippled this country? And for which Nigerians are rooting for a man who will fight it headlong? Pa Adebanjo is right that the presidency should go to the South East for UNITY and fairness and political justice .
But much more importantly, he believes that Mr Peter Obi is head and shoulder higher than both Atiku and Tinubu in all matters of comparison: character, education, preparation, competence , capacity and good intentions for the greater good of the YOUTH of this country in particular. He cautioned Nigerian youths to take their destiny in their own hands by ensuring that a Tinubu or an Atiku didn’t deceive them in 2023 general election. Is Dogara not aware of these developments that are in public domain?
During a recent interview, the former SGF told a national television station that his group, which included Dogara was queuing behind the Presidential Candidacy of Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party and his vice presidential candidate, Dr Yusuf Datti Baba-Ahmed Lawal had taken time to explain why they were supporting Obi, a former Governor of Anambra State.
He noted that Obi left a track record of credible performance which can not be vitiated by the current grandstanding of Governor Chukwuma Soludo, whose remarks against Obi could be a product of envy and pettiness.
According to him, even fairness and political justice demanded that the South East geo- political zone should produce the next president since both South West and South South geo-political zones had done so since 1999 , when this current political era began. He noted that the antecedent of former governor Obi puts him far ahead of both Atiku and Tinubu. In fact, he said the issue of Atiku should not come up since he is Fulani, as the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari, who would have completed two terms on May 29,2023. Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was also Fulani, from the North. It is only fair that the South East is given a chance to produce the next president, since the country belongs to all of us, he reasoned.
Hearing Lawal in that interview, it was certain he spoke for Northern Christians , who felt aggrieved by the APC disrespect for them in choosing a Northern Muslim rather than one of them to pair Tinubu for the 2023 presidential poll. Only recently too , Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike had hinted to make public the agreement he had with Lawal and Dogara regarding the 2023 presidential election. Governor Wike would have been visibly rattled by the action of Dogara in endorsing Atiku for the 2023 poll.
Yes, given the unfairness of the PDP in choosing a Northern Muslim as its presidential candidate with Dr Iyorchia Ayu, another Northerner, as Party Chairman, it was unthinkable that Governor Wike and his G- 5, Lawal and Dogara would have settled to support Atiku. There couldn’t have been any basis to do so. So, what went wrong? What is Dogara angling for? Is his agenda different from CAN and Lawal’s group? Anyway, the way of man can only be fully known by his Maker. But his people must hold him responsible for this political nonsense, plain rascality.
To say the least, Dogara’s endorsement of Atiku is perverse, vain, self- seeking and patently inglorious. What has changed between the time the meetings that resolved to support Obi and the time Hon Dogara made a detour for Atiku? Certainly nothing has changed. Atiku has also not failed to remain who he is: a man whose ambition to be President is selfish and personal, a life- long ambition like his counterpart in the APC, Tinubu, the emi lo kan candidate. Both have nothing transformational to offer to Nigerians.
Why would anybody support Atiku to be president in 2023? The same Atiku who was part of the PDP presidency of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for eight years, 1999- 2007. One would wonder what novelty he would bring to table now, which he failed to do then. Not even when he was in charge of the economy, and supervised the privatization of key national assets, some of which have continued to struggle because of poor due diligence he did before selling those facilities to his friends and cronies. All the Paper Mills and the Steel Rolling Mills are comatose. The buyers only stripped the assets to regain their bids money, and disappeared.
Listening to him recently at a forum with the Guild of Editors in Lagos , Alhaji Atiku said if elected, he will take up the economy from where they left off in 2007. Really?
Was PDP only in power for eight years? Or for 16 years? which included the eight- year period of both late President Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan combined.
Is Atiku trying to distance himself from the liabilities of that period under the PDP?
He is merely being clever by half because Nigerians cannot forgive the PDP for its numerous sins which included unbridled corruption , insecurity of lives and property and poor leadership by its hierarchy in those 16 years– that have blossomed under PMB and it’s APC gang and ruiners of young people’s destiny. In fact, it was their incapacity , incompetence and lack of accountable leadership that brought this evil group, which promised change, but has delivered death, destruction and unmitigated poverty to 133 million Nigerians. And they want to add injury to our wounds by presenting Bola Tinubu, who went to CHATHAM House recently and failed to shine with his team of spin doctors which included Governors Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos, Ben Ayade of Cross River, Nasir el Rufai of Kaduna and former Governor John Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti states as well as House Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila and Dele Alake, former Lagos commissioner for information and Strategy. They would have been agonizingly embarrassed by their principal who delegated some of them to bail him out during question and answer session on a paper he personally presented. Asking another candidate to write exams for you. Strange indeed. This digression is needful so that history will hold these group of characters responsible for their deceitfulness in the Tinubu presidential affair. They want a president that lacks cognitive capacity so that they can rule the country by proxy. How many of them , as governor, is ruling his state by proxy? Yet , they want Nigeria to be ruled by a man whose age, strength, character , capacity, mental alertness and source of wealth are all riddled with suspicions, doubtful and dubious explaination.
Nigerians must not forget that the PDP was in power for 16 years before APC happened on them. And that whatever is happening to the country is a combination of the clueless days of the PDP and the present Scotch- earth and locust years of APC. We can’t forget that it was during the years of PDP that $16 billion was spent on power sector without as much as 2000 megawatts added to the national grid . Nigerians would not also forget that it was under PDP that security budget was allocated to prayer warriors in search of solution to the country’s insecurity while the military remained ill-equipped. The Chibok girls kidnap was under PDP, despite the collusion of the then government of Borno state, led by Shettima, Tinubu’s running mate, as Governor. Today, he wants to preside over Nigeria, but could not safeguard school children under his watch. Only in Nigeria can such comedy of the absurd happen.
So what is Atiku presenting to Nigerians that is convincing Dogara to queue behind him? Absolutely nothing. His endorsement is self- seeking, vain and inglorious. A perversion of proper thinking.
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Perhaps, Dogara is unaware of this secret document, an email which supports the claim that his candidate is in politics to better his business fortunes. According to a US Senate Committee on Foreign Corruption, ” over an eight-year period, from 2000- 2008, , Atiku and his wife, Jennifer Dauglas were able to bring over $40 million in suspect funds into the United States”
Additionally, on his university, a 2005 leaked email by the President of the University, and tracked by an Investigator from US, linked the good fortunes of the University to Atiku being in government.
” The flow of funds to the university will slow down dramatically, if Atiku’s political fortunes continue to wane ” , the email indicated. These facts are in public domain. And Nigerians are not dense to so easily forget. The privatization is a sad story to tell of a man who wants to rule again. God forbid such evil. As we say: AFFLICTION will not arise for the SECOND time. Indeed we raise a standard against it by the grace of Jesus, who rules and reigns over the affairs of all men. We can’t shy away from the danger posed by this immoral endorsement.
During the same meeting with the Editors, he said he would form a government of National Unity. This is fake and trickish for a country that is practicing multi party presidentialism. He is merely making such proposition to forge a sense of false unity for his perverse ambition. It’s the turn of the south to produce the next President. The formation of Government of National Unity, under an Atiku presidency does little to mitigate the dangers posed by political domination by the Fulani North against the South.
Going through his campaign manifesto, which he tagged ” My covenant with Nigerians” Atiku pretentiously noted that he would Restructure the country, if voted into power. He wants to catch the attention of Southern Elite, who believe , and rightly too, that going forward, Nigeria MUST restructure her Federation to be more impactful on the regions. But we know that a man seeking power to enhance his personal wealth and business would not take choices that would endanger such ambition . He can’t deceive anybody by such bogus and vain promises. Besides, he lacks such courage. Many of them who are favored by the current power gambit and disequilibrium, hate the idea of Restructuring. Both Shettima and the Presidential Candidate of New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Dr Rabiu Kwankwaso detest the idea of Restructuring.
But Nigerians are resolved that so much would have to give way for their country to leapfrog in her human capital development and all round general improvements as well as migrating from consumption to production to create wealth and soak unemployment. And the man to drive this transformation is Mr Peter Obi: the one they know and trust.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Okoro is a Lagos-based Nigerian journalist.