Following the six defeats he has already had to endure while trying to win Nigeria’s highly coveted presidential seat, a former Vice President of the country, Atiku Abubakar, 78, will be battling with a feeling of déjà vu about the 2027 presidential election.
Atiku’s attempt to sit atop Nigeria’s political empire goes way back – to 1992 in fact – but so far, the political juggernaut has not carried the day by winning any of the elections he contested in.
And as the next presidential election in 2027 approaches, the memory of those strings of defeats will float up like fragments of a bad dream that will be unpleasantly familiar to the Waziri of Adamawa.
In the 2023 presidential election, Atiku, who was the flag bearer of the People’s Democratic Party, could not work his magic enough on the Nigerian electorate to get him to the seat of power at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja.
And having to deal with finishing the presidential race in second position, Atiku said that the election was “stolen” from him, drawing sympathy from many Nigerians who felt that he had paid his dues in politics and deserved to bask in the allure of Nigeria’s top job.
But the All Progressives Congress would have none of that.
The ruling party knew – and still knows – that Atiku is a highly influential politician whose words could have global ramifications for Nigeria’s democracy and so they decided to put the word out that their biggest rival should not be taken seriously.
The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, then called Atiku on the carpet.
Morka, who announced that Nigerians had rejected Atiku’s presidential candidacy, described the former Vice President’s claims as “comical.”
The APC scribe also noted that Atiku’s long record of electoral defeat was “serially certified” by the courts in the land.
“Six times in the last 17 years, Nigerians have declared their verdict of mistrust and lack of sportsmanship on Abubakar’s presidential candidacy and roundly rejected him at the polls.
“Abubakar’s long record of electoral defeat was serially certified by Nigeria’s highest courts, sealing his rejection by the electorate with judicial and constitutional finality.
“However, a clearly unabashed Abubakar continues to lay a bogus claim that he did not lose the 2023 presidential election. That is beyond comical,” Morka said.
As things stand now, the most die-hard Atiku loyalists know that the 2027 election will be their role model’s swansong. Those close to him are also aware that it will be a make-or-mar election for the man whose critics refer to as a “serial presidential contender”.
Nevertheless, Nigerians are still keeping close tabs on Atiku.
The soft-spoken politician is a national treasure and the people are interested to know whether his potential bid for the office that has eluded him will become a category five political hurricane that will blow everything on its path.
To his credit, Atiku himself has been proactive about his fight to gain power.
“But I don’t see how Atiku can win an election at almost 80 years old. He couldn’t do it when he was younger and sharper. I believe that doing it now will prove too difficult for even a man like him”
He is bent on forming a coalition that could oust the APC, but those he thought were “brothers in arms” in the PDP, the Labour Party, the New Nigeria People’s Party and Congress for Progressive Change, have either been singing discordant tunes or defected to the APC in droves.
At the last count, members of the PDP Governors’ Forum – or what is left of them – have suggested that they consider Atiku’s coalition to be a political rabbit hole they don’t want to go down into.
Also, while the Governor of Delta State, Sheriff Oborevwori, has bid the PDP goodbye to join the APC and his Akwa Ibom State counterpart, Umo Eno, is already cranking away at ejecting himself from the PDP, the National Chairman of the APC, Umar Ganduje, has been openly salivating at the prospect of some other opposition bigwigs joining the APC.
These situations have ramped up fears among many observers who are inclined to believe that the country could be turning into a one-party state, a frightening possibility only an Atiku victory through the sympathy vote could put a stop to.
What is more is that there is also a group of Nigerians who agree that Atiku has been “insulted and mocked” way more than enough by the APC and deserves all the sympathy vote he could get in 2027.
According to these Nigerians, every political move Atiku makes, including visiting former President Muhammadu Buhari at his home in Kaduna State keeps attracting insults, and expectedly, the former Vice President couldn’t agree more with this “sacrilegious” position.
“Some have resorted to insults because I visited former President Muhammadu Buhari.
“So why is it now sacrilegious for me and other leaders to visit Buhari in Kaduna?” Atiku concurred.
He harped on about the “hypocrisy” in Nigeria’s political ecosystem.
“When PDP leaders are busy sipping tea and brokering power deals with President Tinubu, it’s called a strategic alliance.
“But the moment I greet Peter Obi, El-Rufai, or visit Buhari, it becomes a national emergency,” he lamented.
Nigerians will also not forget in a hurry how the actions of the PDP Governors and Oborevwori’s departure had evoked responses from two of Tinubu’s right-hand men, Bayo Onanuga and Tunde Rahman.
Onanuga and Rahman are Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Information and strategy and Senior Special Assistant respectively. They jibed at the way Atiku was going about forming his coalition.
Rahman said things were getting perilous and that the future looks bleak for the former number two citizen.
He noted that those who should be in the coalition had washed their hands of it. He then added, “Isn’t Atiku’s coalition dead on arrival? As my people will say, the glimpses of a Saturday that will be good will manifest from Friday.”
Onanuga said that Atiku’s political future also looks bleak. He was also of the view that the coalition, which he says Atiku is cobbling together with other opposition leader he calls “a leprous group,” had disintegrated.
“Potential allies are giving his leprous group a wide berth. Atiku is a loser again,” Onanuga mused.
A political analyst, Cyril Nwomoko, said, “Any man who contests in a race six times and loses every single one of them will rightly be demoralised if he wants to attempt the race for the seventh time.
“Atiku is a human being and will feel that way, too. So, I don’t envy him at all.
“But I don’t see how Atiku can win an election at almost 80 years old. He couldn’t do it when he was younger and sharper. I believe that doing it now will prove too difficult for even a man like him.
“This could be where I think Nigerians will come in to bail him out.
“Atiku can only get the sympathy vote if he makes Peter Obi his running mate. If that happens, you will see many Nigerians voting out of sentiment for them.
“But I will urge Atiku not to rely on the sympathy vote to win the election in 2027. He should double his hustle and make himself more visible and accessible to Nigerians.”
In his own assessment, public affairs analyst, Solomon Otolorin, said, “Nigerians will be too distracted to give any politician the sympathy vote.
“The people just want to see changes in every facet of their lives. They want the economy to improve and the price of foodstuffs to go down, so sympathy for any candidate will be a mirage in 2027.
“Even Tinubu will not get the sympathy vote.
“I agree that Atiku has been mocked and insulted so many times because he is a perennial presidential candidate, but even if he never becomes president, he has cemented his legacy as a champion of democracy in this country.”