Atiku Abubakar And Obasanjo’s Politics Of Animosity And Blackmail -By Hajia Hadiza Mohammed

For close to two decades now after leaving office as the president of the federal republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (OBJ) has made it a habit in every election period to attack his erstwhile deputy, Atiku Abubakar, the Wazirin Adamawa whom he wants the people to believe is disloyal, corrupt and untrustworthy. And the lies and the campaign of calumny peddled against Atiku has been sustained by the OBJ’s kinsmen, political acolytes and the Yoruba Press. It has been so because Atiku did not invest much in the press or media propaganda neither has he given the OBJ’s allegations the required riposte but bore it all with equanimity.

When Obasanjo is not saying Atiku is corrupt, he will declare that he made a mistake for picking Atiku as his running mate or that God will not forgive him if he had handed power over to Atiku. But, it is clear to everyone that the OBJ’s attack on Atiku is based on personal vendetta rather than fact.

First OBJ wanted blind loyalty from his deputy who was jointly elected with him. But Atiku was not a lame duck vice-president. He knew his rights and mandate as the number two citizen of the country. And he won several landmark legal victories to establish that the vice-president’s loyalty is primarily to the constitution and not the president. The relationship between OBJ and Atiku finally collapsed during their second term, due mainly to Obasanjo’s controversial “third-term” constitutional amendment agenda, which was aborted because Atiku and other well-meaning Nigerians vehemently opposed it. OBJ was said to have sworn that Atiku will only be president of Nigeria over his dead body. As a result, during the 2007 presidential election, OBJ refused to support Atiku’s candidacy and instead picked Umaru Musa Yar’Adua thereby forcing Atiku to defect to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), a political party controlled by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. OBJ was said to have tried in so many subtle ways including a set-up to trap Atiku but failed and then he declared his office vacant because he defected to another party. Atiku again courageously challenged OBJ in court over the matter and won.

Nigerians who knew the state of affairs in the country in 1999 prior to the general were surprised that OBJ is saying that he regretted picking Atiku as his running mate as if Atiku was a liability without electoral value. When the cult of generals led by IBB edged out Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the leading political figure of that era and handpicked OBJ as the presidential candidate of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in 1999, OBJ was like a political orphan without a political base and without any means to finance the presidential campaign, having just came out of prison. It was then that Atiku who has already won the governorship election in his Adamawa State was recommended for him. Atiku was the major political player in the North being in control of the PDM, one of the legacy political platforms that formed the PDP. So, contrary to the OBJ’s claim, Atiku was a great political asset to Obasanjo.

It is also a fact that OBJ performed very badly in his first term between 1999 and 2003 and as result, the PDP governors led by Chief James Onanefe Ibori of Delta State and Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa State were opposed to his second term. It was the same Atiku that convinced the PDP governors to hand OBJ the second-term ticket. What did Atiku got for it? Atiku got betrayed by a man known as a serial betrayer of those that have helped him in the past. It is on record that OBJ betrayed and bullied the founding fathers of the PDP, the platform that made the president of Nigeria and those that bankrolled his presidential campaign.

The major achievement recorded by OBJ during his second tenure had Atiku’s imprint in them. Atiku was the head of the economic team that negotiated Nigeria’s debt exit from the Paris Club. He was instrumental for the establishment of the anti-corruption agencies – the EFCC and ICPC. Some of the young talents that performed creditably well during the Obasanjo era like Nuhu Ribadu and Nasir El-Rufai were from the Atiku’s camp.

The allegation of corruption leveled against Atiku by OBJ cannot be substantiated. Many Nigerians erroneously believed that Atiku mismanaged the Privatization program of the government. As the vice-president, the privatization program was supposed to be handled by Atiku but OBJ hijacked and bypassed Atiku and auctioned our national assets to himself, his kinsmen and his cronies. The Senate Committee Report of 2009 headed by Senator Lawan indicted OBJ and El-Rufai and Irene Chigbue for bypassing Atiku and mishandling the privatization program.

I advise Nigerians to ignore Obasanjo and his antics and his do-or-die politics. Nigerians should ignore Obasanjo and his self-righteous posturing. Obasanjo is more corrupt than any other politician of his era. When you consider what he has acquired now and where he was in 1999 when he had only N20000 in his account, you will understand what I mean. Atiku, on the other hand, was an established business mogul before venturing into partisan politics and was one of the major financiers of the PDP before the emergence of Obasanjo.

As the elections beckon in 2027, we expect a lot of junks and propaganda from political mischief-makers and their media hirelings but I advise that we be vigilant and not be distracted. The focus should be to chase out those that have hijacked the state machinery and foisted misery and hardship on the ordinary citizens and together we will reclaim our country. Long live Nigeria!

Hajia Hadiza Mohammed
hajiahadizamohammed@gmail.com
An actress, social activist, politician
London, UK