Atiku: The Peril of Inordinate Ambition

BY LOUIS ODION

Atiku is a conflicted bigot, consumed by inordinate ambition. He remains a bare-foot slave to an empire the Nigeria of the twenty-first century has outgrown. 

In 2011, he battled (Goodluck) Jonathan for PDP ticket, on the argument that the ‘North has not used up its two term slots’, following Yar’Adua death in office on May 5, 2010. (Forget that he stubbornly refused entreaties not to go to court when the same Umar Yar’Adua was declared winner in 2007 in the spirit of ‘northern solidarity’ and fought like a wounded lion up to Supreme Court.)

But he got a shellacking at the PDP primaries in 2011.

In 2014, he, still driven by that inordinate ambition, again led the rebellion of nPDP to evacuate PDP in protest of Jonathan’s bid for 2nd (3rd?) term; that it was ‘the turn of power to shift to the North’, for the ‘sake of justice and equity’.

In 2018, realizing he stood no chance against President Buhari’s winning 2nd term in 2019, he migrated back to PDP. Of course, he suffered another shellacking in 2019.

With the power of Dollars and thoughtless invocation of the ethnic card at PDP’s May primaries, he overpowered Southern contenders (like Nyesom Wike) to the presidential ticket.

Ideally, aside constitutional imperative imposed by PDP’s own zoning arrangement and convention, the PDP ticket ought to be the preserve of anyone from the South.

In South-South, the natural choice would be Nyesom Wike on account of his tireless utility for PDP all through its trying moments since 2015 and when the likes of Atiku chose to play renegade for pure self-aggrandisement.

In South-East, the choice would be Peter Obi who was Atiku’s running mate just in 2019. Comparatively, the South-East would even appear more deserving on account of Igbo’s Catholic fidelity to PDP since 1999.

But Atiku will sacrifice national unity, put knife on the fragile thread that holds Nigeria together, in a desperation to rig the fulfilment of the long-standing prophecy by marabouts (according to ex-President Obasanjo) of ruling Nigeria some day!

But faced with same temptation at a defining moment in June, northern APC governors shunned the ethnic card. They were patriotic enough to collectively concede the Presidential ticket to the South, as a mark of unwavering commitment to Nigeria’s continued unity, cohesion and harmony.

With the catastrophic Freudian Slip yesterday (Saturday 15 October) before a northern audience in Kaduna, Atiku just reaffirmed his commitment to destroying Nigeria’s unity to achieve his marabout-propelled presidential ambition.

The supreme irony is that this is the same man promising to ‘unify Nigeria again’ in his ongoing campaign messaging.

But this presidential ‘candidate of habit’ will soon find again that the Nigeria of his depraved, bigoted dream no longer exists.