by Alexander O. Onukwue
Love or loathe him, Atiku Abubakar has a plan and he is going about it with deliberateness but without hurry.
Less than two weeks ago, he announced his departure from the ruling All Progressives Party. Having been crowded out of the party’s mainstream and with 2019 on the horizon, Mr Abubakar has returned to the party he helped found at the dawn of Nigeria’s fourth republic.
After three years away, Atiku showed his face at the Wadata Plaza again. These three years with the APC have felt like being in the wilderness for the man who was once the second most powerful man in the country a little over ten years ago. Ranking a distant third in the 2014 primaries was a blow, and due to the nature of the heavyweight merger that resulted in the formation of the APC, it was impractical to seek another ship on which to run for the Presidency at the time. The only option was to play the elder statesman card and promise to support Buhari if he won. Perhaps like Buhari himself, Atiku did not really expect the APC to win, leaving the door open for the Vice President to be the favorite when next it became the time to pick nomination forms for the party. As it happened, Buhari won but was unprepared for the challenging task of fixing an economically fractured country. Again, Atiku expected to be actively involved in this fixing process given his eight-year experience heading economic policies between 1999 and 2007. These consultations have not happened in the past two years. What he has had instead is the stripping of his grip on the Nigerian Ports Authority, a major source of his daily bread.
These three years now feel like a mistake he should not have made. In his defection statement, the former Vice President described his move to the APC in February 2014 as an act of fallibility. And from this fall he must now rise and, like the prodigal son, return home.
His choice of words on his return to the PDP headquarters reflects this: “PDP is the only party in this country. All those who left should return home like I did… we want to tell Nigerians that we have learnt from our mistakes”. Atiku said this while saying that all he had come to do was show his face.
But who are the “we” Atiku referred to?
This could be the former VP’s way of intimating the APC of the imminent storm of defections they should expect between now and 2019. Having been Vice President for eight years and an influential politician many years before, it is an understatement that the political affiliations of thousands, perhaps millions, swing with that of Atiku. We have one of his god-daughters on the Buhari cabinet whose resignation letter we should expect soon, unless it happens that the president declines to run for re-election. We also know the strong ties between the senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity and Mr Abubakar. This presidential aide has refrained from making any direct statements on the matter of Atiku’s defection since it became public, rather leaving the job of rubbishing his former boss to Femi Adesina and Lauretta Onochie.
And there are many others at other levels of government, as well as behind the scenes.
Atiku’s words at the PDP headquarters included a thinly veiled acknowledgement of the counsel of former president Goodluck Jonathan that any intending president must do well to reach out to former President Obasanjo;
“Let me pay tribute to past leadership of this great party wherever they may be and to call upon them to please return home as I have done. It is only by their returning home that we will build a stronger, more united party that can again return to government and continue to deliver the dividends of democracy. I can bet you the records we have achieved so far in governance, no government has yet even done 50 per cent of what we have achieved in government, not to talk of equalling our performance in government.”
“What we achieved” is a clear pass to president Obasanjo. By this, Atiku expresses readiness to seek the endorsement of both former presidents, providing a potential alliance that the APC would be wary of should it begin to show signs of maturity.
It was not just a show of face by Atiku; it was a show of force.
