Home OPINION COLUMNISTS For Atiku To Be President, By Yusuf Ozi-Usman

For Atiku To Be President, By Yusuf Ozi-Usman

Atiku Abubakar
Atiku Abubakar

Atiku Abubakar, second-in-command or Vice to the former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, from 1999 to 2007, has been very ambitious about becoming the President of Nigeria.
Even when he was serving as Vice President, his determination to either edge out his boss, Obsanjo, or to succeed him at the end of his second tenure in 2007, was never in doubt.
Of course, as a bonafide citizen of this country and with his enormous wealth or even lack of it, Atiku is eminently qualified to want to be the President of the country.
Atiku has been in politics long enough to understand what it takes to attract majority votes of Nigerians that would bring him out as President, but he has always been missing the vital points on that.
First, Atiku has been in the habit of engaging in conflict with the leadership of his party, mostly the Presidents. He did it during Obasanjo even as second in command. He was alleged to have mounted pressure with his political clout on Obasanjo, so much that he, Obasanjo, had to come down to his level to be able to survive.
In a nutshell, Atiku has been in the habit of putting himself in opposition to the President of the party he belongs to.
Apart from putting Obasanjo on his political toes so that he was not manoeuvred out, Atiku later, during the regime of President Goodluck Jonathan, led some governors out of a national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to form a new PDP, shortly before the campaigns began in 2014.
In his quest to be President, Atiku had jumped from one political party to another, and eventually brought into the All Progressives Congress (APC) when he joined it, only the agenda of realizing his Presidential dream.
If his idea of being President is hinged on who controls wealth, he would easily have gotten the APC ticket in the 2015 Presidential election, but, unfortunately for him, it was based on votes, stemming from how he convinced the electoral or even party members on his ability to lead the country into prosperity.
Beyond the manifesto of an individual Presidential candidate in any political contest, is also the vital issue of creating good rapport with majority of the various ethnic groups, without necessarily being devious.
But, Atiku has always tried to cut corners, and in the process, he stays aloof from the main stream of his party to struggle to achieve his ambition with a motley crowd of those who want to tap from his wealth.
As a matter of fact, it is politically unwise for Atiku to think that by attacking the President or his political party for whatever failure he notices; the failure which he should have admitted to be part of, he would earn the sympathy of majority of Nigerians.
If he had read the country’s political heartbeat well, he should have known that this is not the time, and indeed, it is not in the regime of President Muhammadu Buhari that he should be making scathing statement about what ought to have been done that were not done, because, obviously, he, Atiku wouldn’t have done something fantastically different if he were to be on the saddle.
Yes, even if he had been sidelined, as he said, by the APC and President Buhari, the point is that he never made a personal effort to be relevant in the system in the first place. He may have forgotten that governance is often the business of collective ideas from within and without, especially, with him being the senior partner in the system. As a matter of fact, there are no evidence to show that President Buhari or the leadership of APC refused to give him audience if he had sought one. But it is like he wanted the President and APC to come knocking on his door or bowing sown for him, or invite him formally to seek for his rich contribution to the governance.
And, instead of flying the kite of restructuring of Nigeria as he did a couple of months ago, thereby kick-starting the agitation, especially in the South West, just so as to divert the focus of his party-in-government and use it to seek for the favour of a section of the country, Atiku should have since embarked on the late MKO Abiola’s political winning formula that so won him the love of almost all Nigerians, without tribal, religious, ethnic and other colourations.
He should have embarked on massive and multi dimensional projects that would touch on the lives of millions across the country, and pretend that he had no any ambition first.
Such projects and programmes could include massive scholarships to indigent students across the country, building of hospitals and clinics as well as primary schools to render free service to the poor, establishing of more industries to absorb thousands of unemployed youths, and so on and so forth.
In other words, Atiku would need to go back to the basic things that would make the mass of Nigerians to love him, the way late Abiola did and ripped abundant goodwill that saw him defeating his political opponents even in their own homes.
Throwing money all over the place, causing confusion with the hope of ripping some political dividends from such confusion, accusing his party or lamenting the negative attitude of his party members and or the President towards him and finding an easy route to the Presidency would only complicate matter for him.
An average Nigerian is thoroughly wise and can’t be taken for granted simply on the alter of how much a politician puts in his pocket for a meal or two.
So, in reality, if Atiku wants to be elected as President of Nigeria, he should first and foremost, return to God who gives power to whom He will and when He will and takes it from whom He will and when He will. He should display the correct attitude towards the leadership of his political party and the man in power; stick to a political party without any pronounced ambition, remain consistent in supporting the leadership, believing that no leader is infallible and try to positively touch the lives of many Nigerians with no condition attached etc.
Only then Nigerians, across the six geo-political zones would seek earnestly after him.[myad]