Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has contested the presidential elections a record five times but is yet to emerge successful in any.
He has by implication contested against four different opponents that included Abiola in the SDP primary in 1993, Yaradua in 2007, Jonathan in 2011, Buhari in 2015 and Buhari in 2918 and has been defeated by all of them.
So I don’t really get it when people say only Bola Tinubu can defeat Atiku?
Since when has Atiku assumed this clout of invincibility when he easily is the most defeated presidential aspirant in Nigeria?
He didn’t go far in the SDP primary in 1993 and had to step down.
In 2007 he was defeated by Yaradua in the general elections, in 2011, he was defeated by Goodluck Jonathan in the primary, then in 2015, he came a distant third trailing behind Buhari band Kwankwaso at the APC primary and in 2019 even with the party’s nomination he was again defeated by Buhari in the general elections.
Now that Atiku has won the PDP ticket through some last minute manoeuvres, he is being touted as a behemoth who can only be matched by another collosus, Bola Tinubu, as if all the other aspirants have no weight politically.
Again one should ask, what is so special about Tinubu that has made him markedly different from the other APC aspirants?
Just like Atiku, Tinubu’s political record has not been that intimidating as he has equally lost many elections he contested by proxy outside Lagos.
He for instance failed to install a governor in Edo, Kogi, and Ekiti states. Even in Osun, where one of his lackeys holds sway, the victory is not a clear one as one would have expected with his famed larger- than- life status.
His major victory have been from the appeal court which gave judgement in favour of most his stooges at a time and not that they won by popular votes.
Even when he threw his weight behind Atiku in 2007 and Nuhu Ribadu in 2011 for the presidency, we all know how far they went.
Again, a peek into the political advantages of some of the aspirants in the APC would put a lie to the claim that only Tinubu can defeat Atiku as many of them have one or two things that have worked and could still work for them if given the APC presidential ticket.
For space let me compress this analysis with just two of them, Rotimi Amaechi and Ahmed Lawan.
Amaechi has won the hearts of the average northerner over the years with his loyalty to Buhari and the number of projects under his ministry sited in the North.
This would win him the support of the North East and West if Buhari raises his hand. He will also enjoys the support of his natal region and is bound to get the votes of the South east and most probably the North Central.
Same for Lawan. As the current Senate President, he has grown beyond the reputation of a mere tomatoes seller that the average northerner is perceived to be in the South and has been able to establish contacts across the nation’s geopolitical divides through his colleagues in the Senate.
But in any case, some of the people that defeated Atiku in the past like Yaradua and Jonathan were not in any way collosal politically.
In case some one says Jonathan used the power of incumbency in 201l, well Yaradua had no such powers in 2007 but defeated him in the 2007 general elections.
If the support Yaradua had in 2007 from the then outgoing president was enough to defeat Atiku, how is it different from the support anyone that gets the APC nomination would get from the current president who wants to decide his successor?
Atiku is not invincible. Anyone that flies the APC ticket stands a good chance of defeating him and there are more reasons other than the fact of his previous defeats.
Firstly, Atiku hails from the North East and to a great extent the region most times kow-tows to the Northwest when it comes to political direction.
In the 1st Republic, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa from the North- West held the torch for the North to follow till his death in 1966.
When it was time for the 2nd Republic, the Northwest again took it with Shehu Shagari rather than Adamu Ciroma (who lost in the NPN primary) or Waziri Ibrahim of the GNPP.
In the 1993 election which Abiola was said to have won, it was because of the support of strong North-westerners like Yaradua that made it easy for Kano, Kaduna and Jigawa from the North West to vote for the SDP while pulling states like Borno (including the present day Yobe) and Taraba states from the North East to go along with them.
Just like in 1993, the strong political figures in the North currently are from the Northwest and if Buhari raises the hand of a Lawan or Amaechi, the North would most probably toe the line.
Besides the North East have always shown that it prefers candidates from the North- west than Atiku.
When Atiku stood against Yaradua in 2007 and against Buhari in the APC primary in 2015; and at the general elections in 2019, his Northeast people did not go with him.
It is easy to descry that if Buhari decides on a candidate like Jonathan or any other, despite the hue and cry on insecurity and high cost of living, the North would trust his decision more than to go with Atiku.
In fact, Kwankwaso’s NNPP may even do better than Atiku in 2023 just like he was ahead of Atiku in the 2014/15 APC primary.
Onazi contributed this piece from Makurdi.
