Atiku Abubakar
The buzz in the country at the moment is about last Friday’s
resignation from the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) by former
Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. It is understandably so. Apart
from Abubakar being extraordinarily large politically, the move fits
into months of speculation and calculations.Though many did not envisage that he would bade his goodbye to the
party on the day he did , it had been certain to every political watcher
that it was only a matter of time before he signs off from APC and
switch to a new political platform in line with his ambition .
In some recent outings that involved key leaders of the party, held
in Aso Villa, the former Vice President was clearly missing. His
absence did not cause much ripples in the political circles.
And it is because the frosty relationship between him and the
president’s henchmen and majority of APC officials who are campaigning
for President Muhammadu Buhari to seek re-election in 2019 and who feel
Atiku is nursing presidential ambition, is in the public domain.
Though contestable especially by his critics, his statement
announcing his resignation clearly explained how patchy the relationship
between Abubakar and the presidency on the one hand and APC on the
other have been since after the last election.
In the statement announcing his resignation, Atiku accused the APC-led government of instituting “a draconian clampdown on all forms of democracy within the party and the government it produced.”
He went on to say: “Only last year, a governor produced by the
party wrote a secret memorandum to the president which ended up being
leaked. In that memo, he admitted that the All Progressives Congress had
“not only failed to manage expectations of a populace that expected
overnight ‘change’ but has failed to deliver even mundane matters of
governance.
“Of the party itself, that same governor said ‘Mr. President,
Sir Your relationship with the national leadership of the party, both
the formal (NWC) and informal (Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar,
Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso), and former Governors of ANPP, PDP (that joined
us) and ACN, is perceived by most observers to be at best frosty. Many
of them are aggrieved due to what they consider total absence of
consultations with them on your part and those you have assigned such
duties.’ Since that memorandum was written up until today, nothing has
been done to reverse the treatment meted out to those of us invited to
join the All Progressives Congress on the strength of a promise that has
proven to be false. If anything, those behaviours have actually
worsened.
But more importantly, the party we put in place has failed and
continues to fail our people, especially our young people. How can we
have a federal cabinet without even one single youth?
“A party that does not take the youth into account is a dying
party. The future belongs to young people. I admit that I and others who
accepted the invitation to join the APC were eager to make positive
changes for our country that we fell for a mirage.
Can you blame us for wanting to put a speedy end to the
sufferings of the masses of our people? Be that as it may be, after due
consultation with my God, my family, my supporters and the Nigerian
people whom I meet in all walks of life, I, Atiku Abubakar, Waziri
Adamawa, hereby tender my resignation from the All Progressives Congress
while I take time to ponder my future.”
Expectedly the move by Abubakar has attracted a flurry of
reactions. Kaduna and Kano State Governors, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and
Alhaji Abdullahi Ganduje declared that there was nothing wrong with the
former Vice President quitting the party.
El-Rufai said, “it was good that former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar left the APC early.”
The former FCT minister added that “if given the ticket of the
Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku is not a threat to President Muhammadu
Buhari in the 2019 presidential election.” He further described Atiku as
“a serial defector.”
Ganduje argued in a similar fashion with his Kaduna counterpart. He
described the former Vice President as a serial defector but conceded
that it is within his right to belong to any party of his choice.
He said “Yes, he has his own freedom to choose which ever
political party he wants to be and he has decamped to PDP. It is the way
of politicians to choose the party they want to belong to.
“He was in PDP before and he was also in another party, so it
was not surprising when he decided to choose to go back to another
party. I think democracy is like that. People can choose where they want
to be and they are not committing any crime by chosen to go where they
want to be. That is democracy.”
But while El-Rufai and Ganduje took a slight dig at Atiku, the
leadership of APC refused to flay the ex-VP’s move. It feigned ignorance
of his departure from the party.
National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi
told newsmen at the party’s secretariat that Atiku has not formally
informed the party of his decision to leave.
When asked of the impact of the development, Abdullahi said the
party was not worried yet until they see the number of people that would
follow the former Vice President before it would know whether to worry
or not.
He said “if the former Vice President feels that his interest
is better served elsewhere, we can always wish him goodluck. For us, the
task of building a political party is not a day’s job; it’s marathon
and it takes many years and we will continue to improve on our system
until we are able to get the kind of party that we want to really,
really build.
“It takes many years to build a strong political party. In a
new party, you find some people are happy, some people are not so happy
and everybody would have to take their decisions at some point. So, we
don’t have anything to say rather than to wish the former Vice President
goodluck.
“A loss of fortune is in numbers. So, if we are able to see the
number of people that followed the former Vice President to his new
party that is when we will begin to worry. So, when we see we will know
whether we need to worry or not. It is about number,” the APC’s spokesman, added.
However, Femi Fani-Kayode, former Minister of Aviation, hailed Abubakar for dumping APC.
Fani-Kayode, a chieftain of the PDP, also welcomed the former Vice
President back to the fold of the PDP. In a tweet via his handle,
Fani-Kayode wrote: “Congrats to @atiku for dumping the plague called
APC and coming back home to the PDP family. It took courage to take
that bold step and I commend him for it.”
How it all started
The undercurrents in the APC that culminated in the exit of Atiku
are clearly deeper that many thought. Though the former Vice President
contested against President Buhari for the ticket of APC, he played key
role in the eventual victory of the party in the 2015 presidential
election.
Atiku got thumbs up from Buhari and his men. But that was for a
while. His move to play huge role in the shape the APC’s structure would
take by being handed the chairmanship of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of
the party was thwarted. That was to mark off his angst with the party.
The President’s men did not leave anybody in doubt that they would
not brood any force contesting the control of the structure of the party
with President Buhari. Atiku saw the handwriting on the wall clearly.
But he did not bow to their antics.
Buhari’s men felt that the former Vice President still had his eyes
fixed on the presidency and started early to decimate him and his
structures.
Apart from denying him the position of BoT helmsman, they tried to
clip his wings from his state and zone. People who were not loyal to him
were handed top appointments in government in what some analysts argue
was a strategy to prune his influence or even wrest the structure from
him in Adamawa and North East.
Though he managed the situation in the public, things continued to
get foggy for him on a daily basis. At a point El-Rufai stepped out to
openly criticise him and accuse him of nursing presidential ambition.
The hallmark was the onslaught on Intels, a company Atiku has
substantial stake in. Though the government repeatedly explained that
the move against the company had no political undercurrent, many
Nigerians are yet to accept the claim.
Government says the contract with Intels, a leading integrated
logistics and facilities services provider in the maritime and oil and
gas logistics sectors of the country, was void ab initio.
Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and minister of Justice,
Mallam Abubakar Malami SAN, in a letter dated September 27, 2017 to the
Managing Director of the NPA, Ms. Hadiza Bala-Usman, said that the
agreement, which has allowed Intels to receive revenue on behalf of NPA
for 17 years, violates the country’s constitution, especially in view of
the implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy of
government.
The matter was made worse by the fact that, weeks before the
federal government’s action, Atiku had cried out how he had become an
outsider in the government he played key role in bringing about.
Presidential ambition
That the former Vice President has been nursing presidential
ambition is a fact at the doorstep of most Nigerians. He probably had
thought that the much publicised claim that President Buhari will hold
sway for a term will be kept. This feeling was further strengthened by
the ill-health that kept the President away for a long time.
Owing to all that, many had calculated that the president may not
be in a good shape to seek re-election in 2019. Apart from Atiku, some
APC stalwarts who had their eyes on the top seat made moves to build
foothold and networks to actualise their ambitions.
But even when Buhari was still ill and there was doubt about him
seeking re-election, there were strong attempts to fend Atiku off. A
governor from the North West and a few others led the charge. And that
was how Atiku kick started a romance with PDP, it was gathered.
Buhari’s return in a much more stable condition totally blighted
the remaining hope of Atiku contesting on the APC platform. His
situation was worsened by the coming out of minister of Women Affairs,
Hajia Aisha Alhassan to declare support for him. This was not taken
lightly by Buhari’s men. Though the move did not earn Alhassan a sack, a
battle line was visibly drawn by Buhari’s henchmen.
Atiku’s next move
A hail of predictions have followed Atiku’s exit from APC. The
commonest of all is that he is moving to PDP. Those who make such
prediction are not wrong going by the body language of the former Vice
President in the last couple of months. He has been fingered in
virtually all the happenings in the opposition party including those who
are vying for the chairmanship of the party. Sure, a clearer picture on
his next political move will unfold in the next few days.
Source: Daily Sun
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