Dialogue With Nigeria By AKIN OSUNTOKUN
DIALOGUE WITH NIGERIA AKIN OSUNTOKUN
Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Titus 2 2:
It is not the old who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right. Job 32 :9
The African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential candidate and former Vice president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has doubled down on his resolve to get into a campaign of rough and tumble against the reelection of incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He has apparently adopted the heckling of the latter (“Bola!) as his campaign moniker. The irony is that the object of his acidic broadside has developed more than a thick skin against mud slinging, leaving sensitive skins like us to bear the brunt of the unrestrained pollution of the Nigerian political atmosphere.
Experience is valuable in politics, but it does not guarantee sound judgment. As Nigeria looks towards the next presidential election, Abubakar faces a question that goes beyond his right to contest. How does one reconcile his apparent desperation to get Tinubu out of office and the role he played in splitting the opposition?. It is not rocket science to surmise that nothing will hand victory to the incumbent president faster than the gift of a split opposition. And more than any other political leader, Abubakar bears responsibility for the fractured opposition. If the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is less than a shadow of itself today, he substantially bears responsibility for the sorry state the party has found itself in.
He has sought the presidency repeatedly since 2007, whether through party primaries or a general election. Persistence is not, by itself, a fault. Nor should age disqualify anyone from public office. But Abubakar, who turns 80 in November 2026, should be willing to consider whether his experience might now be more valuable in cultivating a new generation of leaders. If this was not apparent in 2023, it is crystal clear today.
Abubakar’s strongest obstacle may be the North–South rotation principle. After eight years under President Muhammadu Buhari, many Nigerians expected the presidency to move south. The PDP nevertheless nominated Atiku in 2023, while retaining a northern national chairman. The resulting dispute was not a minor quarrel over party offices. It went to whether the party was honouring a political understanding that helps hold a diverse country together.
That question has not disappeared.
Tinubu is a southerner seeking a second term, and another Abubakar candidacy would again ask voters to set aside the expectation that the South should have the chance to complete an eight-year turn. Atiku is legally entitled to run. But legal entitlement is not the same as political wisdom. If he wants the opposition to unite behind him, he must explain why its members—and the voters they hope to persuade—should bear the cost of abandoning that expectation for his sake. If anyone should be expected to strengthen this instrument for national integration, it is him, afterall he once held the national high office of Vice president for eight years.
His candidacy has repeatedly raised the question of regional balance. In 2010, the Adamu Ciroma-led Northern Political Leaders Forum selected him as its preferred northern aspirant ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential primary. Supporters may see that episode as ordinary political organisation. Critics see it as an example of the regional calculations that have too often undermined the national evolution of Nigerian politics. Predictably, his candidacy has provoked the baser instinct of Nigerian politics and resulted in him becoming little more than the candidate of the far North.
He correctly argued that in the Fourth Republic, Nigerians of Southern origin have held the office of the president more than their counterparts from the North. Perhaps a better measure of political balance in Nigeria is the totality of the political history of post independence Nigeria. Some have also said that his presidential ambition dates back to the Social Democratic Party, SDP, primaries in 1993 and even 2003 when he floated the possibility of joining the presidential race in 2003 in a BBC Hausa service interview he gave in the run-up to the PDP presidential primaries of that year.
My concerns about Abubakar’s political judgment go back further and that perhaps there could be the element of a jinx to the elusive aspiration of the former Veepee. On a visit with President Obasanjo in 2002, I met him in the company of the late Etsu Nupe, Umaru Ndayako, who reportedly bore the emissary that the ‘North’ did not want him to run with Abubakar for his second term. Turning down the request, Obasanjo reasoned that picking another running mate would pose for him the challenge of learning to cope with a new deputy. Better to stick with the ‘devil he already knows’. He subsequently shared a succession plan in which Abubakar featured as the ultimate beneficiary. While the necessity of rehabilitating Nigeria’s battered image kept him busy on the international circuit, it also provided the default value of giving Abubakar the opportunity of grappling with the governance of Nigeria as acting president.
He then planned to reverse the roles in his second term: stay back at home and project Abubakar to the international community to round off his preparation for receiving the presidential baton. That is my recollection of a private conversation, not a complete account of the relationship between the two men. Nonetheless, this recall still begs the question. How did Abubakar squander this potentially effortless route to the office he so much coveted?. Here is a typical plausible explanation.
Two days to the PDP presidential primaries at the Eagle square, the veepee had an interview with the BBC Hausa service. When asked of his intentions for the forthcoming event, he said he had three options. One was to run with Obasanjo, the other was to run with former Vice President Alex Ekwueme and the third was to run for the ticket himself. When asked of the option he would likely take, he said he had not made up his mind.
After his 2023 debacle, a wise political scientist counsels ‘Stepping aside would not erase Atiku’s achievements or diminish his influence. He could help shape a coalition, mentor emerging leaders and insist that any candidate seeking his support offer a serious plan for governing Nigeria. Such a role would demand political discipline, not surrender’.
Of his incessant penchant of attributing Obasanjo’s biff with him to his refusal to support the ‘third term bid’, here is another perspective. According to Governor Donald Duke and as published in the Cable online newspaper, the relationship between Obasanjo and Atiku had become increasingly strained as the president prepared to seek a second term. The situation, he said, weighed heavily on Obasanjo. He remembered receiving a late-night call from the president, who complained about what he saw as betrayal by his deputy. “I urged him to remain calm and promised to fly to Abuja the next morning,”.
‘What followed was an unusual meeting at the presidential villa the following day. He added that the episode also reinforced one of the lessons he learnt from his time in office which is that, “betrayal is a very crazy thing in politics” He noted that as the men were leaving Obasanjo’s private study, Babangida said he had forgotten his keys inside and asked Obasanjo to walk back with him. As both men walked back alone, Babangida dropped his diplomatic tone and delivered a blunt warning. “I warned you not to trust that your deputy,” And when they returned to the others, Babangida looked at Atiku before turning back to Obasanjo. “This one cannot rule Nigeria,”.