Buhari, Atiku’s Battle for Aso Rock

Akanni Alaka

 Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has never been equivocal about his ambition to govern Nigeria. And just like most politicians, he had always attributed the quest to his love for the country and desire to contribute to the social-economic development of the people.

“Patriotism is the key thing. It is the thing propelling my presidential ambition. I want to move Nigeria forward. Patriotism is needed to move Nigeria forward,” Abubakar, a former vice president said during a visit to the home of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, chieftain, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, in Imo state last October.

This Saturday, Abubakar, who most Nigerians like to refer to using his first name, Atiku, will have another opportunity to realize the quest, which began in 1992 when he contested for the presidential ticket of the defunct Social Democratic Party, SDP, which was eventually won by the late Moshood Abiola. He will be among the 72 presidential candidates on a ballot for the February 16 presidential election, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The high number of presidential candidates will surely make the ballot paper unwieldy and certainly, a nightmare to handle for most voters on Saturday. But for Atiku, the presidential candidate of PDP and his supporters, the ‘nightmare’ will be the presence of the incumbent president,  Muhammadu Buhari among the lot of the presidential candidates.

The president who is also seeking the consent of Nigerians to continue in office for another four years is considered the biggest obstacle to Atiku’s quest for the highest office in the country among the lot of presidential candidates.  Inversely, Atiku is also considered by analysts as the only candidate on the presidential ballot that can make Buhari a one-term president.

Apart from being a former vice president, the retired Customs officer has built alliances all over the country over the years and was generally believed to have the resources necessary to see his ambition through.  “Atiku is the only one of the PDP contenders that could actually defeat Buhari so his win shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise,” Sola Tayo, Associate Fellow at Chatham House said in an article published just after the former vice president won the ticket to represent the PDP at the National Convention of PDP held in Port Harcourt, Rivers State last year.

For the 72-year-old Atiku, Saturday’s election may be the last chance to realize his ambition of occupying Nigeria’s presidential villa, Aso Rock as the number one man. He was a ‘joint occupant’ of the presidential villa as vice president to former President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007.

But both men fell out at the beginning of their second tenure of office in 2003, though the retired Customs officer remained in office in spite of the acrimonious relationship with his boss till the end of their tenure. It was believed that the sore in the relationship between the two men was partly due to pressures on Atiku to contest the PDP presidential ticket against his boss ahead of the 2003 general election.

The Adamawa-born retired Customs officer turned businessman defected to the then opposition Action Congress ahead of the 2007 presidential election. Though he got the presidential ticket of the party, he was only put on the ballot for the election after the Supreme Court nullified his disqualification from participation in the election by INEC.

The electoral commission had based his action on alleged indictment of Atiku in a report of an investigative panel set up by Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. The former vice president contested, but lost the election, placing third after Umaru Yar’Adua, the candidate of PDP who was the winner of the election and Muhammadu Buhari of the then All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP.

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Atiku returned to PDP following the death of Yar’Adua. He contested for the presidential ticket of PDP in 2011. He lost the ticket to former president Goodluck Jonathan despite pitching his bid on a controversial rotational clause of the presidency between the North and South in the PDP’s constitution. Atiku was virtually in the cold politically until he moved to the APC, a mega coalition of the defunct Congress of Progressive Change, Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN and a faction of All Progressives Grand Alliance ahead of the 2015 presidential election.

He also contested for the APC’s presidential ticket at the presidential primary held in Lagos late 2014. He lost the ticket to President Buhari who went on to win the election, ending PDP’s 16-year occupation of Aso Rock.

Citing lack of consultations with party chieftains before decisions on major issues are made, poor governance of the ruling party as well as resort to increasing “arbitrariness and unconstitutionality” by the Buhari administration, Atiku announced his return to PDP in November 2017.

 

Determined to give his desire for the presidency another push, Atiku at the PDP presidential primaries described as the most competitively contested since 1999, cornered 1,532 of the 3,274 votes available at the Convention. He shockingly walloped Aminu Tambuwal, believed to be favourite for the presidential ticket to a distant second with 693 votes.

“We have a wonderful opportunity to return the PDP to power.  We’ve enumerated the challenges faced by the country over and over. What we need to do is to proffer solutions. That is what will make us different from the clueless government,” Atiku told his party members after he was declared the winner of the presidential ticket.

If Atiku succeeds in returning the PDP by winning Saturday’s presidential election, he would only have repeated the feat of President Buhari who also won the presidency at his fourth attempt in 2015.

Buhari, a retired military General had under his belt appointments such as serving as a military administrator of the defunct North Eastern State, petroleum minister, chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund as well as being a former Nigeria’s military Head of State.

The former military head of state began his attempt to occupy the highest political office in the country in 2003 when he contested the presidency on the platform of the defunct ANPP against former president Obasanjo. Though he lost the election, he was able to garner over 30 percent of the votes cast with most of the votes coming from the North-west and the North-east.

Buhari also contested the presidency against the late Yar’Adua and former president Jonathan on the platform of ANPP and CPC respectively. He also lost both elections. Notably, the former military president never won a local government outside of the North in all his previous bids for the presidency pre-2015.

But the alliance between his party, the CPC, the defunct ACN as well as a faction of APGA ahead of the last general election was believed to have given him a truly national platform necessary for winning a presidential election in a big, vast Nigeria.

Also, the defection of some PDP governors and legislators led by then then Speaker of House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal and Senator Bukola Saraki were the other factors that aided Buhari’s defeat of incumbent president Jonathan at the presidential election.

Buhari who anchored his campaign on the need to end corruption associated with the administration of president Jonathan, revival of the economy and tackling of the security problems posed to the country by insurgent group Boko Haram won the election with 15,416,221 votes to Jonathan’s  12,853,162 votes.

Generally, PDP members had argued that the Buhari government has failed to deliver on its promises in these three areas to Nigerians.

Rather, they argued that Nigeria had recorded many reversals in many areas it was making progress under the PDP administration, citing the country’s descent into economic recession as well as increased insecurity in the country as reflected in resurgence of Boko Haram insurgency, killings attributed to farmers/herdsmen crises and bandits among others.

A presidency source also told this newspaper that APC will ensure that the election process is well policed in the two regions to ensure that the massive rigging suspected to be responsible for high number of votes usually scored by the PDP, especially in Rivers and Akwa Ibom is not allowed to take place this time around.

“The man who didn’t have police got 15 million. Are you saying those 15 million voters are all dead? And then, the same person who got those 15 million votes, his party has consistently won all the bye-elections since 2015, 90 per cent of all the elections,” Keyamo said while asserting that the president is in pole position to win the election.

They also argued that the president had demonstrated sectionalism dangerous for the continued existence of Nigeria as a united country with the lopsided nature of the appointments he has made since he was elected into power.

They also argued that the president has rather used his promise of fighting corruption to hunt down his political opponents, while closing his eyes to instances of graft, involving members of his administration. Thus, they argued that the Nigerian electorate have no choice but to use their voters cards to kick out Buhari and vote for Atiku on Saturday.

Also, unlike Buhari, Atiku is pan-Nigerian and a successful businessman, who knows how to create jobs and will manage the economy better, according to the PDP members

“Atiku is experienced enough. He has demonstrated clearly in his personal life and his business life, that he has the capacity to bring this country to one, and make sure that our economy grows so that all of us will have something to eat,” former president Jonathan said during the rally held to kick off of PDP campaign in Sokoto.

“There is no security, there is no food, there is hunger. Atiku is the man that can fight insecurity, hunger and unite Nigerians. It is about food and security. We will vote Atiku. He understands it; he knows how to create jobs. He knows how to unite Nigerians. We have tried Buhari and he has failed,” Senate President Bukola Saraki added. 

On the contrary, APC supporters say Atiku is part of the failed 16 years administration of PDP, warning that his administration will return Nigeria to the era of wanton corruption, which the Buhari government has been working hard to put an end to. According to them, unlike Atiku, Buhari is a man of integrity who will not condone any form of corruption.

They also argued that most of the problems militating against the delivery of the change promised Nigerians by President Buhari were inherited from the PDP administration.

Both candidates have also published documents on the policy they will pursue in office to tackle various problems, confronting Nigeria and Nigerians if they are elected this Saturday. While introducing his policy document during the launch of his presidential campaign, in November 2018, Atiku had noted the high unemployment rate among the youths as well as rising incidents of poverty and insecurity across the country.

He then asked Nigerians to ponder on their socio-economic situation before assumption of office of the Buhari government and nearly four years thereafter. “The most important question in this election is: Are you better off than you were four years ago; are you richer or poorer? That is why our primary focus is to get Nigeria working again,” Atiku said.

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Highlights of Atiku’s pitch to Nigeria in the 180-page ‘Get Nigeria Working Again’ document include growing the economy to achieve a gross domestic product of $900 billion by 2025  as well as a plan to lift, at least, 50 million people out of extreme poverty within the same period.

“Fundamental to addressing all these issues is restoring Nigeria’s economic growth. Without a growing economy, firms cannot employ our people. Without jobs, poverty and hunger grow.

“As poverty and hunger grow, so do the conditions that lead to insecurity,” Atiku said while further elucidating on the policy document in a recent article.

He also listed his plans to end Boko Haram insurgency, Nigeria’s high rate of out of school children, grow the economy if he is elected Nigeria’s president.

However, the former vice president’s plan to  sell off key state assets, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, as part of his plans to liberalise the economy have attracted negative reactions from the ruling APC as well as some Nigerians.

Though the former vice president said he would plough funds realised from the sale of the assets into a special fund for the development of education and health sectors, many Nigerians are not convinced that he will be that altruistic in carrying out the privatisation plan.

This fear was heightened when the former vice president said at a recent meeting with business leaders in Lagos that there is nothing wrong if his friends turned out to be beneficiaries of the privatisation of the state assets: “I am also not going to enrich members of my family, but my friends. Are my friends not entitled to be enriched? As long as there is no element of corruption there. And there was none during our time, when we privatised the banks, when we privatised institutions of the private sector.”

Atiku was the head of the National Economic Council and chairman, National Council on Privatisation as vice president between 1999 and 2007. During the period, he was accused of selling most of the state assets privatised to his friends and cronies, a claim that Atiku has repeatedly denied.

But the opposition has since seized on his recent assertion to evoke the allegations that just like he did when he was vice president, Atiku will likely sell off key state assets to his friends and cronies when he assumes power.

Also, the Buhari administration has encapsulated the plans it will pursue if its gets a fresh mandate from Nigerians for another four years on its ‘Next Level’ document. The Buhari administration indicated its plans to tackle the problems of unemployment through the scale up of the N-Power scheme, introduction of a skill acquisition programme for up 10 million youths in partnership with private sector initiatives that will result in creation of massive jobs in the agriculture, ICT and creative sectors. The APC government also indicated that it will scale up its investments in roads, rail, power, and the Internet if elected.

Also included in the Next Level document are plans to encourage growth of business and entrepreneurship, human capital enhancement and development and inclusion of more youths and females in government. “Corruption is an existential threat to Nigeria.

Despite the gains we made in closing the gaps, we know that there is still much ground to cover to stop the systemic corruption. We are committed to deepening the work we started this first term,” the president said of his plans to continue the battle against graft in its second tenure in office.

Atiku and Buhari have been busy going round the country making promises and selling the programmes they will implement if elected into office as contained in the policy documents.

In accordance with Section 99 (1) of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended), which provides that “the period of campaigning in public by every political party shall commence 90 days before polling day and end 24 hours prior to that day,” the two parties are expected to stop campaigning on Thursday.

Even as its presidential candidate was going around the country campaigning, the PDP has continued to raise allegations of a plot to rig the election by the ruling party using the police, officials of INEC and intimidating the judiciary.

Convinced that it can win the Saturday’s presidential election if the process is free and fair, PDP has repeatedly called on foreign countries like the United States and the United Kingdom to put pressure on President Buhari, INEC and the police to ensure that there is no any form of rigging.

In addition, PDP had continued to subject every processes and actions taken in respect of the election by INEC, the police and other stakeholders to scrutiny, raising alarm whenever it believed that any of the action was directed at compromising the credibility of the election.

On the contrary, APC said the opposition party’s frequent alarm about plot to rig the election was nothing short of intimidation and blackmail tactics against President Buhari’s administration, INEC and other state institutions ahead of the general election.

APC National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, while reacting to claims by the PDP that INEC is deliberately hampering distribution of voter cards to limit turnout of electorate on Saturday, said the opposition party’s line of attack cannot affect President Buhari’s emphatic victory in the February 16 election: “There is no doubt that the PDP will be roundly rejected at the forthcoming general election. On our part, we are confident that Nigerians will renew our mandate on the basis of our verifiable and multi-sector record of performance under the leadership of President Buhari.”

Kassim Afegbua, one of the spokespersons for the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation told The Nigerian Xpress that the chances of Atiku beating Buhari in the election are very bright, especially, because of the poor performance of the government. 

“In fact, we are the party to beat in this election. Our chances are very bright in the sense that Nigerians have come to realize that APC is a distributor of poverty, hunger, deprivations and a promoter in very ingenious manner of nepotism, cronyism, selective amnesia and hypocrisy of the highest order,” Afegbua said.

According to INEC, 84,004,084 million Nigerians are on the register for the 2019 general elections. The commission also indicated that the distribution of the registered voters across the geographical zones is as follows: 12,841,279 (South-South); 16,292,212 (South-West); 10,057,130 (South-East); 13,366,070 (North-Central); 20,158,100 (North-West); and 11,289,293 (North-East).

The president had, since he began contesting for the presidency in 2003, earned the bulk of his votes from the North-west, the zone with the highest number of registered voters and the North-east.

Even without scoring up to 25 per cent of the votes cast in any state outside of the North, the president was able to garner 12,710,022 million votes and 12,214,853 million mostly from the voters in both regions in 2003 and 2011 respectively. As the candidate of APC, Buhari scored 15,424,921 to PDP’s 12,853,162 million votes to win the 2015 general elections.

Festus Keyamo, spokesperson of the Buhari Presidential Campaign Council said Buhari will repeat the feat of massive winning in the Northern part of the country as part of the strategy to win Saturday’s election. According to him, the 20 million votes in the seven states in the North-west remained ‘locked down’ for the president ahead of the presidential election.

Other APC members also told The Nigerian Xpress that they were also similarly optimistic that the president’s performance in the Northern part of the country will help him to win the presidential election.

They predicted that APC will win over 70 per cent of the votes in the North-east, despite the fact that the presidential candidate of the PDP is from the geographical region.

In the North-central, the ruling party members also believed that candidate Buhari will do well and overwhelmingly win in almost all the states except in Benue where the governor, who was elected on the platform of the party, had defected to PDP.

They also acknowledged that emotions that have been stirred over the killings of the villagers during farmers/herders clashes will certainly affect the chances of the party in Benue and Plateau states in the presidential election.

In the South, APC members said Buhari will win in the six states of the South-west. The argument is that apart from APC governors being in control, President Buhari has embarked on key infrastructure projects in the region.

They cited the Lagos-Ibadan railway and the ongoing construction of Lagos Ibadan standard gauge railway. APC members also believed that the recent endorsement of President Buhari by a faction of Afenifere as well as the fact that Yemi Osinbajo, the running mate of President Buhari hails from the region will work to the advantage of their party’s presidential candidate in next Saturday’s election.

In addition, they noted that a national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, had promised to deliver the region for Buhari.  APC members agree that APC may not win any of the states in the South-east and the South-south in the presidential election.

But they argued that with the calibre of politicians from the region now in their fold and the support of the APC governorship candidates as well as ongoing infrastructure projects across the two regions, the president will certainly do better in the two regions than he did in 2015 when he scored only 200,000 votes in the entire five states of the South-east, for instance.

As expected, chieftains of PDP said such permutations by the APC members amounted to building castle in the air. They argued that the president’s failure to deliver on the changes he promised when he was elected, as well as the fact that he is contesting against a man who shared the same ethnic and religious affiliations with him means that he may not be able to repeat the overwhelming win he had recorded in the Northern part of the country in the past.

They also pointed out that in 2007, Buhari was roundly defeated when he contested against the late Umaru Yar’adua, who was from Katsina State, a Muslim and Fulani like him. While Buhari scored 6,605,299 votes, the PDP candidate’s 24,638,063 garnered votes in that election.

Afegbua  said the insecurity problems posed by Boko Haram and other bandits as well as the fact that unlike in 2015, the major contender against Buhari in the 2019 presidential election share the same geo-ethnic origin as well as religious affiliation with him will work against Buhari: “All these worked against Jonathan in 2015. But this time around, a Muslim is contesting against him, a Northerner is contesting against him, a Fulani man – a titled one for that matter – Waziri of Adamawa is contesting against him. It is going to be fight to the finish.”

Also analysing the chances of Atiku against President Buhari, Akin Osuntokun, one of the spokespersons of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, said on a television programme last week that most of the permutations by the APC on how Buhari will win this Saturday’s presidential election cannot be defended logically. 

“If you go to the North-west and centre on Kano, the most popular politician in Kano today is Rabiu Kwankwaso, a lot of votes the president got in 2015 is attributed to him. Atiku, of course, is not a stranger to the North-west, even Katsina State. If you go to Kaduna, you only need to go and listen to what the people say about the governor of that state. In a state that is as polarised as Kaduna State, the governor of the state has gone to take a Muslim, as his running mate.”

He also predicted massive win for Atiku in the South-east because one of their own is the running mate of the PDP presidential candidate.  “Peter Obi coming from the South-east is the first time they (Igbo) have a realistic chance of coming near to the presidency. So, why would they not vote for that ticket?

Osuntokun added that contrary to assertions by the APC, Atiku’s promise of restructuring will also ensure that he wins in the South-west and South-south: “The South-south and South-west share a similar aspiration and that is restructuring – if you go to the South-west today, the number one issue is devolution of power and, of course, one candidate has made it clear enough that he would support it, while the other said he wouldn’t.

PDP members also believe that the momentum is increasingly weighing in favour of Atiku, as the nation heads to the presidential poll. They cited the acceptance of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to support the presidential ambition and campaign for the PDP candidate, while using any available opportunity to impugn the ability of President Buhari to continue in office as an indication that 2019 may indeed be Atiku’s year.

Obasanjo has been instrumental to electoral success of all who have occupied the office of the Nigerian president after him, including Buhari.

He has, however, withdrawn his support for the incumbent president, whom he had accused on nepotism and lacking the strength and the mental capacity to tackle the major challenges confronting the country.

Surprisingly, he had embraced Atiku, despite his vow that he would never support the presidential ambition of his former vice president over allegations that the retired Customs officer was involved in a lot of corrupt deals when they were in office.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Director-general of PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, said the fact that people like Obasanjo, himself, Kwankwaso and other politicians, who supported Buhari to win in 2015 are no longer with him had foreclosed the chances of victory for the APC presidential candidate in the presidential election.  

Also, the raft of endorsements of the presidential ambition of the former vice president by some socio-political groups like by a faction of Afenifere, Ohanaeze Ndigbo,  PAN Niger Delta Forum, the Middle Belt Forum and the Northern Elders Forum, subtle campaign against the candidacy of Buhari by some top Christian clerics as well as result of recent polls by the Economist Intelligence Unit and a polling firm, Williams and Associates that Atiku will win the presidential election, have boosted the confidence of PDP members that their presidential candidate will emerge victorious at the end of the counting of the ballots for the 2019 presidential election.

As expected, APC had dismissed the predictions by the polls as well as the endorsements of the PDP presidential candidate by the socio-political groups. The ruling party noted that similar endorsements did not stop former President Goodluck Jonathan from losing the 2015 general elections. Besides, the APC members argued that the high number of people at the party’s campaign rallies and recent defections of leading PDP members, especially in the Northern part of the country will help Buhari achieve victory in this Saturday’s presidential election.

Will Buhari overcome Atiku’s challenge? The question will be answered before the end of next week.