Why Atiku’s candidature is becoming appealing to me By Chidiebere Nwobodo……
Hitherto, many of my friends on social media and beyond, who understood me as a critic of President Buhari’s inept government had been inundating my inbox and phone lines, with the request to know my stand on 2019 presidential election, especially as it relates to the choice of candidate.
My sincere answer had been that I would make up my mind after major political parties must have conducted and concluded their primaries. I never gave it a second thought.
But few days ago, I had a paradigm shift. After a painstaking, meditative thought process, I decided to take a stand–even before presidential primaries of major political parties. I did a brief research on the presidential aspirants and came out with this conclusion: Atiku Abubakar is the pathway to victory in 2019!
The million-dollar questions that will be racing through the minds of my readers at this juncture are: why Atiku? Is he not too old to run? Why not a younger candidate? Is Atiku not corrupt? Why this “desperate” man? Can Atiku even travel to the United States? Has Atiku credited Chidiebere Nwobodo’s bank account to warrant his current position? Why???
Before I marshall out mind-illuminating and unbiased answers to the above questions, without running the risk of prejudice, I will like to provide a background understanding to the political monster Nigerians are going to confront in 2019 in the person of President Muhammadu Buhari.
2019 presidential election will be a different ballgame altogether from what was obtained in 2015. Nigerians will deal with a government that has exacerbated the woes of this nation for the last three years, yet keep blaming the past for its gross incompetence and cluelessness. Nigerians will confront a President Buhari whose only purpose of being in power, is just for the sake of it and lures of office.
Opposition candidates will contest against President Buhari who does not believe in the sanctity of electoral process and will be ready to muscle any voice of dissent, using the instrumentality of state institutions, just to cling to power at all cost. The PDP and other opposition parties have to go into this electoral battle with an APC—a ruling political party whose oxygen of survival is share propaganda and sadistic witch-hurting opposition elements. And the list goes on.
Why Atiku? From my investigations and profiling of intending presidential aspirants in the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar is the only candidate that President Buhari’s handlers dreads like sheep fear lion. His emergence as the PDP presidential candidate will herald the fiercest political royal rumble in the contemporary history of Nigerian politics. He is the only presidential hopeful (amongst already declared aspirants) that will give President Buhari a good run for his money.
He is the only aspirant that has formidable political machinery across the six geo-political zones of the country. He is a political veteran with huge financial war-chest. He has enormous political goodwill among the political class, though misunderstood as “corrupt” and “desperate” by a section of the masses.
Is Atiku corrupt? Like most of Nigerians, Atiku is not without blemish; he is not a saint either. One thing that is still counting for him is that, he has not been charged let alone convicted on any known corruption case. Atiku was a victim of jungle justice in the court of public opinion; of which was instigated by former president Olusegun Obasanjo, whose inglorious Third Term bid was scuttled by group of democrats led by Atiku Abubakar.
If Atiku is as corrupt as most of us were meant to swallow hook, line and sinker, he would have been in the court battling with EFCC long before now, especially when juxtaposed with his age-long presidential ambition, which cut across several administrations. Like Donald Trump, he is a victim of oligopolistic tendencies of Nigerian post-civil war Military Establishment who has monopolized the nation’s presidency. An Atiku Abubakar presidency is a nightmare to the cartel of retired military generals.
Is Atiku too old? As much as I remain an advocate of youths in governance, we should also not take it out of context. Youthfulness is not the only required quality for performance and service delivery. And old age is not the only perceivably weak point that makes a leader to fail, unless in a pathetic situation where senility and fragility sets in.
It may be good to recall that the worst performing governor in Nigeria today is the youngest of them all—Yahaya Bello of Kogi State. President Donald Trump became US number one citizen at the age of seventy years. President Buhari is seventy-five (at least official figure). Has his age been the reason for his monumental failures? No! Has Yahaya Bello’s age been an advantage? No! Is Trump being negatively effected by his age? No!
One of the best performing governor of the biggest state of California in America is Jerry Brown. Incidentally, he is the oldest at age 81. He is six years older than President Buhari, yet doing wonderfully great! My argument is; a dunce is a dunce irrespective of his age! Atiku’s age is experience embedded in numbers not otherwise!
Can’t Atiku travel to America?? This is one of the funniest and dumbest question I have seen some gullible Nigerians asked. From my research, Atiku was never barred from going to United States neither was he declared wanted by FBI or CIA. He was simply DENIED visa! If US Embassy can deny an average Nigerian visa, who says they can do that to an Atiku Abubakar? Or are we implying that one automatically becomes a “criminal” if his visa application is rejected by US Embassy?
Come to think of it; must Nigerian presidential hopeful visit America before becoming president? Is Nigeria an American colony? Are we not undermining our sovereignty? Did Donald Trump pay homage to Nigeria before being elected US President? Please let us focus on serious issues of national significance not mundaneness.
Is Atiku really desperate?? I have heard this story of desperation for so long, but I will do justice to it today. I am not a protagonist of political “Jumpology” otherwise known as cross-carpeting. Atiku has featured as a member of three political parties; namely PDP, AC & APC. But one striking factor of note is that, he has only appeared in the presidential election ballot paper only once—when he contested as Action Congress candidate in 2007.
Between an Atiku who contested only once and President Buhari who ran for president for four consecutive terms, and had just declared to run for fifth time, who is actually DESPERATE? As a matter of fact, the then candidate Buhari ran severally on the platforms of APP, ANPP, CPC & APC yet these insufferable hypocrites never referred him as “desperate” but will always be shouting Crucify Atiku! Crucify Atiku!
In 2011, hundreds of Nigerians died in the North because a certain Muhammadu Buhari lost election. The same person threatened that “dogs and baboons” would soak in blood if he did not get it again in 2015, yet he is not desperate in the eyes of Atiku haters!
As a bouncily cosmopolitan, maverick entrepreneur, liberal-minded Muslim, and pan-Nigerian in nature, an Atiku Abubakar candidacy is becoming increasingly appealing to me. Undoubtedly, he is the candidate to watch in the coming presidential election, if the patriotic quest to save Nigeria from rudderless government of President Buhari should be actualized.
