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Atiku: The Battle Rages
Atiku Abubakar
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Vice President Atiku Abubakar waxes stronger, even as orchestrated efforts are made to halt his 2007 presidential quest
By Amaechi Dike, Abuja
Those who may be inclined to
jubilate over the seemingly unending travails of the nation’s number two citizen, Vice President Atiku Abubakar as the 2007 presidential election draws nearer may have to contend with a lot of frustration, following the unyielding spirit of the Turaki Adamawa. Despite the flurry of real and clandestine activities, apparently engineered by the presidency to put the Vice President out of the presidential race, he has remained undaunted, even as he waxes stronger and, indeed, more vehement in his determination to succeed his estranged boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo.
While the Vice president’s source of power may not be immediately visible to the ordinary eyes, investigations by The Source show that beyond his famed financial muscles, there appears to be a new thinking by the North to rally round the Adamawa State-born second in command for the country’s prime office, which has remained a subject of controversy between the North and the South in the run-up to the 2007 elections. A competent source within the northern top political hierarchy told The Source last week in Abuja that the region has come to the realisation that the Vice President who is the highest political office holder from the North in the present civilian dispensation needs to be adopted as the Northern candidate if the region is to recapture the federal seat of power in 2007. “Look, I must tell you that there is no way our ambition to produce the next president can be actualised if we don’t rally behind Atiku Abubakar and close ranks among the various interested aspirants from the region”, a source who does not want his name in print told The Source.
Apparently buoyed by this new spirit, the Vice President last Monday, July 24, at the General Assembly of the Northern Union in Abuja— a gathering of the cream of the North’s political and traditional leaders which met to assess the journey to 2007 and how it could gain advantage over the other zones, the South east and South south in the bid for the presidency, talked tough on his presidential ambition.
Addressing the gathering, Atiku, who displayed a strong fighting spirit, said that although he had political disagreement with his boss, President Obasanjo, he was sure to become the presidential flagbearer of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), if a level playing ground is provided by the Ahmadu Ali-led executive of the troubled party. He stressed that not only would he secure the PDP ticket, but was also certain to become the next President of the country in 2007. Atiku also challenged any person, including President Obasanjo, who has any information against him on corruption to make it public.
Atiku: “I know that my ambition is in the hands of God and Nigerians and I do not accept that any power of incumbency could stop me”. He flayed the registration of 40 political parties, so far, for the 2007 general elections, arguing that such a development was an open invitation to chaos and anarchy. “I have a worry about the development because we have never reached up to this level before where we have 40 parties. In the First Republic, we had three major political parties; and in the Second Republic, we had two decreed parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republican Convention (NRC), which worked well”, “the Vice president said, adding: “my view is that the political history of Nigeria has tended to favour a two –party system because even during the five-party era, three-parties had an alliance and in the Third Republic, 1999, we virtually came to about two parties”.
Atiku expressed the hope that the present civilian dispensation would also end up in a two-party arrangement through political evolution, despite efforts by the presidency and INEC to register a number of political parties considered unwieldy for the nation’s democracy, by political analysts.
In a voice laced with a refrain, the Vice President who had earlier in an interview on a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) programme, Network Africa, expressed the fear that the proliferation of political parties might hamper the future of civil governance in the country, lamented that things were not working out the way they should. Said he: “I have voiced it several times that things are not going the way they should go. There is no internal democracy in the PDP; things have been skewed in a way and manner to scheme out specific interests and individuals”. He suggested that the problem could, however, be resolved by allowing “internal democracy” “within the PDP as a way of achieving genuine overall reconciliation. “I have called for a level- playing field in the PDP. I have called for genuine reconciliation. There must be internal democracy in the party. There have been fundamental mistakes and I will give the PDP the opportunity to rectify all these issues, and I think they have limited time to do so”, the Vice President who had severally been rumoured as having dumped the PDP over succession controversies, stated.
He further emphasised that he does not belong to any of the PDP factions, which arose as a result of serious disagreements between the party’s leadership and most of its founding members, including the PDP pioneer chairman, Chief Solomon Lar.
Recapping the fears already expressed by several political stakeholders as to the willingness of INEC to conduct a free and fair election in 2007, without succumbing to manipulations by the power- that-be, Atiku said it was the collective responsibility of Nigerians to ensure fair electoral contests both in the parties and at the general elections. He said that unless this was done, democracy would be jeopardised in the country. Atiku: “I think the achievement of a level-playing field would depend on a lot of factors, particularly stakeholders in the democratic process,” including “the political parties, INEC, government, the civil society, the media and the electorate. I think all will depend on them. If they want to see a hitch-free and level- playing field and proper democratic process, they will have it.”
Apparently reiterating his no shaking disposition in the face of the disagreement with President Obasanjo, the Vice President in the BBC interview cautioned against the thinking in some quarters that it was possible only for the president’s anointed to succeed him in 2007. According to Atiku, the leadership is different from those who will come to vote at the convention. At the convention, you will have more than five to six thousand delegates. Most of these delegates are still unknown, so I think they are coming with their own independent mind to vote for the best candidate. So, I think it is not a correct assumption to assume that it is only the person who the president wants that is likely to emerge as a candidate, unless there is no elections, unless the elections are not free and fair, unless they are manipulated to favour others and disfavour some, in which case there is no level-playing field in the PDP.”
The Vice President further debunked allegations that he is corrupt by saying emphatically that “if any one wanted to stop me from being president, it would not be as a result of an indictment for any corrupt practice.” Said Atiku: “I have challenged everybody, including the government, if you have any corruption charge against me, bring it out”. Besides, he stressed that the fact that “I have immunity now, does not mean that I will have immunity tomorrow”. Atiku startled his audience when he stated that he, infact, had no opportunity to be corrupt, even if he had wanted to. Atiku: “I have been Vice President for seven years, where I have never awarded a contract; where I have no access to public fund, how will I steal public fund? Today, as a Vice President, I cannot award a contract of N10, 000; but a minister in a ministry can award a contract of N50 million without coming to the council of ministers. So, where do I have access to public money?
Over the past few weeks, the Vice President’s name has been linked with one probe or the other, in an alleged attempt by Aso Rock to tie him with corrupt enrichment charges and consequently prevent him from contesting the presidential election in 2007. Instructively, the seeming frenzy to trace Atiku’s suspected corrupt enrichment heightened early July with the arrest and temporary detention of business mogul and Globacom’s chief executive, Otunba Mike Adenuga, over alleged unwholesome financial transactions. Media reports had initially linked the arrest to alleged business relations between the Vice President and the multi-billionaire tycoon in the wake of renewed attempts to scoop up Atiku’s alleged dirty past, but the number two citizen had vehemently rejected every suggestion of wrong- doing. Before Adenuga’s arrest and detention, however, the Vice President had been accused of having indulged in an act of corruption with an American congressman, William Jefferson. Jefferson, who is currently under probe by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and prosecution by an American court, was alleged to have secured a $100,000 gratification for Vice President Abubakar to facilitate a communications deal in Nigeria – an allegation which Atiku and his aides have denied several times over. And penultimate week, the national media was awash with reports of an EFCC request from the United States and the European bloc to assist in the commission’s probe of the Vice President’s business and banking transactions across the globe. This came on the heels of the reported swoop on the documents of a Lagos-based bank suspected to hold the banking records of Atiku.
But apparently unperturbed by the searchlight beamed on him, especially after the collapse of the third term gamble, Atiku who had largely remained taciturn over the rotation controversy spoke out last week. He told the Northern Union gathering, which was boycotted by all former Heads of State from the region, that there was indeed an agreement by leaders of the PDP that power should rotate between the South and North geo-political zones, beginning from 1999 when the present dispensation came on board. The Vice President told the audience that foundation members of the PDP had accepted the principle of rotational presidency and that this was why it is contained in the party’s constitution. According to him, politicians nation-wide had a consensus in 1998 for power to shift to the South and thereafter to the North at the expiration of eight years. “ I think for political stability, for development and progress of our nation, we as politicians and credible leaders of our society, we had a consensus, I think it is a matter of honour and integrity and responsibility that we abide by our resolution or our consensus.”
However, last week’s gathering witnessed a moderation in the views of Northern agitators for the presidency in 2007. Unlike previous occasions when some individuals adopted a militant and arrogant disposition to the succession struggle, leaders of the NU and majority of the speakers at the occasion, advocated dialogue and reaching out as against threats and intimidation.
Leading the advocates for peaceful negotiation of power was Dr. Olusola Saraki who called for caution in the debate for power shift, even as chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Abubakar Koko, berated the North for stagnation because of bad leadership. He challenged the region to provide good leaders that could remedy the problem confronting the North.
In his paper at the occasion, Governor George Akume, who was the only governor in attendance described the 2003 general elections as “rigged at all levels”. The Benue State Governor, who came out “smoking” against the failed third term agenda, said that no political office holder on account of the 2003 elections could be exonerated from the electoral fraud. Akume: “The 2003 general elections like the previous ones were characterised by large scale malpractices, including rigging at all levels. Security personnel who were expected to keep the peace and protect electoral materials and personnel turned a blind eye while electoral malpractices and violence were being perpetrated by politicians. This paved the way for large-scale violence in many parts of the country, resulting to loss of life and arson. Cases of impersonation, multiple voting and alteration of collated figures were rampant”.
At the end of its session in Abuja, the Northern Union issued a nine- point communiqué, one of which urged Southern politicians to respect the power shift pact because “power rotation strengthens democracy as it enhances representation, peace, national stability and unity.” The Union said it would intensify its search for a “credible, formidable, nationally acceptable, honest, God fearing, hard-working, dynamic and untainted presidential candidate for the 2007 polls.”
The group further called for stiffer measures against the “ravaging poverty, insecurity, human rights violations and political violence and admonished the country’s anti-corruption agencies to discharge their responsibilities dispassionately.”
And as if to assure the Vice President and the entire PDP members that the party would provide the much-talked about level playing ground for all aspirants to actualise their ambition, the party’s national chairman, Ahmadu Ali, unfolded the PDP’s convention calendar last Monday. Addressing a gathering of the PDP Youth Leadership Consultative Forum (YLCF), Ali disclosed part of the new guidelines for the party’s convention leading to the election of candidates for the 2007 general elections. Under the new guidelines, the number of delegates allowed each of the PDP state governors has been pegged. According to Ali, only 10 commissioners or special advisers will be accepted as delegates to the party’s for the purpose of electing candidates to fly the party’s flag in the 2007 general elections. The PDP chairman said that as part of the on-going reforms in the party, there was need to create a level playing ground in the search for candidates. He said that 25 delegates and 15 members of the executive of the party in each ward would participate in the election of the party’s flag bearers for the House of Representatives, the Senate and the governorship elections. Ali further disclosed that a total of 8,812 PDP wards would participate in the exercise. |
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