2019 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION : COLLAPSE OF ATIKU’S SINISTER AGENDA.
BY
OTEGHE ADAMS
The national tragic drama scripted as Atiku’s presidential ambition has attained a precarious crescendo and crashed irretrievably into the abyss of egomaniac delusion. The contrived lion-like roar that accompanied the entrance of the PDP presidential candidate into the race was pitifully tempered by the cat-modeled faint cry that accompanied Atiku’s exit. The Waziri Adamawa could not buy the conscience of Nigerians with the rains of ill-gotten dollars as he did at the PDP Port Harcourt political stock market called the PDP national Convention. The palatial castle structured on shifting sands of lies and dubious intention has sunk under the weight of people’s history. The secret files of promised privatization deals and dark pages from the manifesto of cronyism capitalism are flying out of the windows of Atiku’s sinking castle.
Not my words but that of Atiku’s former boss President Olusegun Obasanjo on Page 33 of OBJ’s book, MY WATCH, that ‘’ …….God will not forgive me’’ ( Obasanjo referring to himself) if he ever supported Atiku to become the president of Nigeria. President Obasanjo remarked in the historic book that his former Vice President (Atiku) was the ultimate definition of Kleptomania. The former president did not miss words in testifying that Atiku could and should not be trusted with the keys to Nigeria’s treasury. Then for reasons that will someday be transparently revealed Obsanjo suddenly in the past few months recounted; OBJ said that he has decided to forgive Atiku adding that he would support the same man he once called an internationally certified Kleptomaniac for presidency. Not many Nigerians believed that Obasanjo had done his confession with contrition to be deserving of the power to forgive Atiku. Nigerian voters must have concluded that Obasanjo was pretending to be seeking equity with blood –stained hands from a dubious handshake of reconciliation with Atiku.
Anyhow, the people in OBJ’s polling unit disagreed enough with the ex-president to ensure that he lost even his voting center and guaranteed that Buhari won even in the nearest home base of Obasanjo in the vicinity of Otta Farms. The story of such conspicuous defeat also played out in Atiku’s voting center where he lost to President Buhari. And of course Nigerians numbering their millions sent an unmistakable message that Obasanjo’s character profile along with those of other Generals in OBJ’s cabal (like Ibrahim Babangida) cannot diminish the sterling attributes of incorruptibility and integrity for which President Buhari is famed.
Perhaps the globally respected flagship of print journalism the New York Times, (February 26th) knows something about the Nigerian polity that the ganged- up elites of our nation do not seem to understand. The newspaper couldn’t have staked its hard won reportorial prestige without some credible assessment and investigation before the medium so poignantly and summarily crafted the story consequent on Atiku’s defeat : ‘’………Muhammadu Buhari won a second term as president , defeating a corruption-stained ‘’. That is how the New York Times captured the formidable opinions of Nigerians at home and the Diaspora regarding the character profile of the PDP candidate.
How did Atiku even acquire the temerity to run in view of the catalogue of stinking mountains of corruption allegations attached to his name? Was the PDP presidential candidate thinking that his sinister history as the Chairman of the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) has so quickly faded in the memory of Nigerians? Except that one dwells in a hallucinatory universe, how would Atiku think that he has been forgiven for presiding over the despicable history of the auctioning of premium Nigerian assets to himself and his cronies for miserably cheap rates with the label of public beneficial privatization policy? From Nigeria Airways to NITEL and the economically healthy West Africa premiere shipbuilding company NIGERDOCK to cherished assets and huge estates of thriving federal government hotels, the Atiku’s gang allegedly and brazenly looted the commonwealth of Nigerians. In fact, while the Waziri Adamawa and his friends were busy snatching these public assets, Vice President Atiku did not show any compunction of conscience regarding the compensation and unfulfilled contract for the long suffering workers who laboured to build the properties that the Atiku’s elites were voraciously converting to their private inventory. So many years after the end of his Vice-Presidency, it is only recently under President Buhari that the abandoned workers of Atiku’s privatized federal establishments are being offered their due compensation. Is this the kind of repugnant record on which anyone with iota of moral scruples would have sought the presidency of Nigeria? Unfortunately those possessing a pedigree of perpetual right to impunity do not bear the kind of moral compass that trigger questions of justice and integrity. Fortunately, the people constitute the sovereign jury in a Democracy.
As the electorate queued up on the 23rd, I can imagine the voters squeezing their noses to minimize the acidic offence rising from the unresolved issues of the scandalous bribes regarding international Halliburton contracts and the collapse of BANK PHB in which Atiku was fingered as a principal shady actor. And the voters were equally anxious about Atiku’s track record on privatization and his boisterous declaration to’’ sell NNPC to friends’’ if he was elected. Providentially and politically, Atiku will never be elected! History must have consequence. Apparently Atiku like the Director–General of his campaign, Senator Bukola Saraki seem not to believe that history should have repercussion. But the ordinary hard working compatriots have a different viewpoint hence they vehemently rejected the attempt at a reunion by a coven of elites with dubious past regarding economic crimes against the Motherland.
Atiku’s presidential ambition justifiably crashed disastrously as it should be. The defeated PDP candidate may simulate tears of protest and be urged on by some of his party members for various spurious reasons. The longer he waits to accept the inevitable, the more scandalous the final chapters on Atiku’s road to political perdition. The drumming and the exuberant accolades of the relevance –seeking coterie to which the Waziri dances today will soon fade. The day of reckoning will come –Atiku will lose at the Election Tribunal and the Supreme Court because of the mathematical impossibility of the PDP’s ability to manufacture the realistic figures to overturn the result. A four million vote difference between President Buhari and Atiku is an insurmountable lead which the PDP cannot erode no matter the theatrical drama the party intends to stage at the Election Tribunal. Lagos, Kano, Kaduna, katsina, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe and Nssarrawa states votes along with the healthy Buhari wins from all the geo-political zones will be upheld. Unstoppably thereafter, Nigeria will continue with the momentum of the irreversible journey to the ‘next level’ with the propelling energy of President Buhari’s internationally respected integrity.