2023: Igbo Presidency And The Atiku Challenge

Atiku

 Many people who are canvassing for president of Igbo extraction in 2023 erroneously think that beyond President Muhammadu Buhari’s perceived averse to the race producing the president, the biggest threat is the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu whose presidential ambition is thinly veiled. They are wrong. The most potent threat against South East producing a president in 2023 is former vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. 

The Adamawa State-born politician would be 77 years old in 2023, yet he is unrelenting in the pursuit of his ambition to become president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. And he has the deep pocket to match his big ambition despite the huge opposition that he is likely to face. Atiku’s deep pocket has always worked for him, especially in party primaries. A little history would help here. In the run-up to the 1999 presidential election at the Jos Convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to pick its presidential candidate, it was a race between former vice president Alex Ekwueme and General Olusegun Obasanjo who recently came out of prison. There was no

debate that Ekwueme was the better candidate, but Obasanjo was the establishment’s candidate and the person with the deep pocket to buy off the delegates for him was Atiku Abubakar. His massive war chest so impressed Obasanjo that he made Atiku Abubakar who had already won the governorship seat of Adamwa State, his presidential running mate. Remember that Obasanjo at the time he left prison allegedly told Orji Uzor Kalu that he had only N20,000 in his bank account. Thus Obasanjo like General Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 did not spend a dim of his own to become president in 1999. A significant proportion of the campaign funds came from Atiku and those associated with him. He literarily bought the vice-presidential seat. 

In 2011 when President Goodluck Jonathan had completed the first term of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, there were clarion calls from the North that he should step aside for the PDP to nominate a Northern candidate to continue the governance of the country under the PDP zoning arrangement. Jonathan and the Niger Delta who fate had put the presidency on their laps did not succumb to that intimidation. What followed was the coming together of Northern presidential aspirants to choose a consensus candidate. Adamu Ciroma, former CBN Governor and former minister of finance was the chairman of the Consensus Committee. 

Among the Northern presidential aspirants include former governor of Kwara State, Bukola Saraki, former military president, General Ibrahim Babangida, former National Security Adviser (NSA) General Aliyu Mohammed Gusau. Atiku floored these heavyweights (Babangida and Gusau) and surprisingly emerged the consensus candidate of the Northern establishment in the PDP to face Jonathan in the presidential race, all thanks to his deep pocket. Atiku’s deep pocket, however, did not work for him in the run-up to the 2015 presidential election when he was defeated in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential primary by General Muhammadu Buhari who was backed by the biggest amalgam of forces ever seen in Nigeria’s political history by an opposition party, who ‘out-dollared’ the former vice president. He was later to bounce back to his winning ways at the PDP presidential primary in Port Harcourt in 2018 in which The Punch’s cover story was “ Presidential Primary: Dollar Rain As Saraki, Atiku, Tambuwal Divide PDP Leaders.” 

We have seen the political atmosphere in which our political class operates and this condition tends to favour people like Atiku who are ready to stake their own money to get what they want. A cursory look at the list of PDP major stakeholders in South East with the exception of former governor Mr Peter Obi there is really not many that could match Atiku dollar for dollar in a PDP presidential primary. Not that the Igbos don’t have people of means, but they mostly make their money in the ‘hard way’ unlike people like Atiku and Northern politicians that the system easily opens the vault for them and they could afford to lose millions of dollars in a single campaign night without concern. Already there are concerns among South-East stakeholders in PDP that the current PDP national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus is implementing the script of Atiku Abubakar and it is all geared towards the 2023 presidency. 

The North is also keeping the PDP as plan B in case Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu picks the APC presidential ticket and refused to peak a Northern Muslim as his running mate. Many promoters of Tinubu in the North are insisting that he must choose a Northern Muslim if he must get their votes or they would vote for PDP if it has a Northern Muslim as its presidential candidate. The situation is not helped by the 2019 Election Review Committee of the PDP headed by Bauchi State governor Bala Mohammed which recommended throwing open the race for PDP presidential ticket, a position opposed by the South East stakeholders. This is the dilemma of Ndigbo ahead of 2023!