The 7th bid of Atiku – Fani-Kayode

By Femi Fani-Kayode

In 1993, he contested the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential primaries and lost to MKO Abiola. In 2007, he contested as the Action Congress (AC) presidential candidate in the general elections and finished third behind Umaru Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari. In 2011, he lost the PDP presidential primaries to incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

In 2015, he lost the APC presidential primaries to Muhammadu Buhari. In 2019, he was the PDP presidential candidate and lost the election to Buhari. In 2023, he was the PDP presidential candidate and lost the election to Bola Tinubu. 7th bid He is now on his 7th bid. There are only six documented cases of individuals who have contested the presidency of their country seven times or more. They are: 1) Pascual Racuyal of the Philippines who contested 11 times 2) Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda of Mexico who contested 10 times 3) Harold Stassen of the United States of America who contested nine times 4) Jack Fellure of the United States of America who contested nine times 5) Lyndon LaRouche of the United States of America who contested eight times And finally… 6) Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal who contested seven times. Every single one of them failed to ever win the presidency of their nations except Wade who won on the 5th and 6th attempts and lost on the 7th. Atiku has failed in all of his six attempts over the last 33 years and he is now on his 7th. Stop and think about that. In a country of 230 million people, one man has been trying to be President for 33 years, has failed each time, and is now attempting it again for the 7th time. Again, consider the fact that the same man has been a member of seven political parties since he joined politics in 1991 and four political parties (one of which is the PDP which he left and rejoined twice) since 1999. Political wanderer Given this, it is fair to say that he is a political wanderer. Unlike leaders elsewhere, to Atiku, the party is nothing but a vehicle of power that exists for him and he does not exist for the party. It is of course his right to keep trying but this could also be legitimately regarded as an obsession. Nothing is more indicative of that obsession than his attempt to mobilise the governors of the PDP to move against his leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a man who had nominated him as his running mate for the second time, topple him as the party’s presidential candidate and take his place as the flag bearer in 2003. This was not only a case of ingratitude but also treachery and especially so because Obasanjo had trusted him to raise all the finances that were needed for that second run. Atiku allegedly raised the money through private donors and then tried to browbeat the President so that he would not be reelected. Two interventions saved Obasanjo. Firstly, the God factor, which was the most important, and, secondly, a stupendously wealthy businessman from Kano (who I shall not name) who made virtually all the money that was needed available for both the delegates at the convention and the election itself. That is how Atiku’s rebellion and ‘Absalom’ agenda was thwarted and crushed. Yet despite that Obasanjo refused to drop him mid-stream as his running mate and he was elected as Vice President on the same ticket of the man that he had sought to humiliate and destroy. Atiku is no Wade It was after the second term began after the 2003 election that the real war between the two camps began and I am proud to say that yours truly and others like Nasir El-Rufai, Nuhu Ribadu, Akin Osuntokun, Abiye Sekibo, Frank Nweke, Uba Sani, Adamu Bello, Julius Ihonvbere and many others that were either working in the Presidency or were Ministers together with others like Peter Odili of Rivers State, Umaru Yar’Adua of Katsina State, Ahmad Makarfi of Kaduna State and a number of other governors took the battle to the gates of the Vice President and gave him hell over the next four years. By the time it was all over, we had put him in his place and proved to him that treachery and rebellion are as the sin of witchcraft and never pay. His political career has not been the same since as he stumbled from one failed bid to the other leaving a legacy of division and destruction in his path. Some may argue that if Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal could eventually win after five attempts Atiku may do so after seven but the truth is that Atiku is no Abdoulaye Wade. He does not have the latter’s sincerity of purpose, courage, sense of loyalty, humility, discipline and patriotism. Outside of that, unlike Wade, Atiku Abubakar is more of a pragmatic businessman who is more interested in rebellion and treachery than a statesman who puts the interest of the nation before his own. Unlike Atiku, Wade would always endeavour to do the right thing by others, especially in the case of those who stood by him. Unlike Atiku, he appreciated the importance of loyalty, he did not covet the position of his leaders, he understood the power and dynamics of patience and he was not one to act desperately. Unlike Atiku, he NEVER tried to undermine, destroy, humiliate, discredit or topple his benefactors and neither did he attempt to dishonour standing agreements or deny others the presidency whenever it was their turn.

Wade played politics within the rules and norms: he did not attempt to subvert or violate them to his own advantage. Atiku, on the other hand, revels in subversion and believes that Nigeria was established for his benefit alone. This is a man that has consistently opposed and fought against the idea of power shift to the South ever since he left office in 2007. He enunciated that notion and willingly espoused that grave and grievous injustice. He challenged Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, stayed with the coalition that removed him from power in 2015, took the PDP ticket from Nyesom Wike in 2022, ran against Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi in 2023 and is doing so again in 2027. Contempt for the South What remains striking is that he has done this even in cycles when power shift to the South was the prevailing argument from much of the political class, including many Northern leaders who backed it in the name of rotation, fairness and equity. Clearly, he has contempt for Southern aspirations. That is his mindset though he masks it well. Simply put, he has a sectional outlook and not a national one and for this reason God will not allow him to achieve his ambition. Outside of that, you cannot repay good with evil and escape it before the Lord. Atiku will learn this the hard way and so will those that stand with him. Is it any wonder that this time around he has employed the services of a controversial lobbyist to help him in return for a massive dollar fee? In the history of our country, we have never witnessed a presidential candidate employ foreign publicity firms to openly run down, threaten, slander and disparage the very Nigerians he wants to lead simply because he is so desperate to be President. Yet he will fail and, more importantly,, if the necessary evidence is adduced, he will be made to face the law for alleged corruption when he was Vice President. The most obvious allegation concerns the Mambilla Power Plant case but there are other allegations bordering on the Siemens case, the Halliburton case, the INTELS case, the William J. Jefferson U.S. Congressman case (for which the Congressman went to jail), the Leno Adesanya power plant case (which is reported to have been re-opened) and other serious allegations of corruption and offshore payments involving millions of dollars which, though yet to be proven, have left many unanswered questions. To be fair, none of these cases have, at least so far, resulted in a Nigerian trial or conviction but all have left a paper trail in the files of foreign regulators and many unanswered questions at home. Yet it didn’t stop there. Atiku’s worst crime was not the allegation of financial impropriety but his relentless determination to undermine and destabilise the government that he was elected to serve and to utterly destroy his principal whom he obviously hated with what the Bible described as “a perfect hatred”. Atiku betrayed Obasanjo to such a point that I, as Minister of Aviation at the time, was constrained to demand that he should be thrown out of Cabinet meetings on two separate occasions during full sessions of Cabinet. I did this during the course of the meeting and in the presence of every single Cabinet member and when I did so there was pindrop silence in the Cabinet chambers. The first time, Obasanjo saved him from the humiliation and appealed to me and the other Ministers to allow him to stay whilst he sat there looking daggers at me and clearly in a state of shock. The second time, which was a few weeks later, I made another demand in our Cabinet meeting under ‘other matters’ that if he did not get up and leave the chamber as a consequence of his betrayals and treachery against our President, then we the Ministers would walk out and leave him to conduct the Federal Executive Council meeting alone with the President. Obasanjo again appealed to us to allow him to stay but compelled him to apologise to the entire Cabinet there and then for his treachery and outrageous behaviour all motivated by the fact that he wanted to topple the President and take his place. Atiku apologised there and then to the entire Cabinet and consequently was allowed to stay at the Federal Executive Council meeting but he NEVER attended another Cabinet meeting after that. This episode proves how over-ambitious he was as Vice President and how he coveted the seat of the man that brought him out of obscurity in Adamawa State and made him his Vice President. He repaid Obasanjo’s good with evil just as he later repaid Tinubu’s, Buhari’s and the old PDP’s good with evil in later years. Today he is so desperate to win the presidential election that he has not only destroyed his old party, the PDP, by splitting it into two but he also did the same to the ADC, his new one, by breaking it in two and driving the Obi/Kwankwaso faction out to join a new party called the NDC. Anytime he does not get his way or his ambition to become the flag bearer of whichever party he is in is threatened, the party must be broken. In the case of PDP, he single-handedly killed what was once Nigeria’s dominant party and finally buried it in 2019. That is his political legacy: Chaos and destruction. Subsidy Worse still, as presidential candidate of the ADC, he has said he will restore fuel subsidy just to get votes knowing that in the process of implementing this disastrous policy he will utterly destroy Nigeria and cause us to lose all the economic gains we have made in the last three years. Let him be aware that there is nothing worse than attempting to destroy the future of your people just because you want to be President. Again let him be reminded that to pay a foreign PR company led by a controversial character who uses his wife’s surname rather than his father’s, $1.2 million to denigrate, undermine, demonise, vilify, malign and destroy your President in the international media just because you covet his seat is unacceptable. History is against you Waziri. No person in the world has ever tried to be President of his country seven times or more and has won except for Abdoulaye Wade and, like I said, you are no Wade and neither do you share his gravitas nor have his grit. Statistically and historically, you have little chance of winning on your seventh attempt or of ever becoming President. It appears that the Living God has placed a divine injunction on your ambition. This will be proved in January 2027 when you will be defeated by your old friend and arch-nemesis and be compelled to go back to Dubai and retire in peace. I come in peace, Waziri, and I wish you well.

•Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation, Nigeria’s Ambassador-Designate to South Africa, Lesotho and Estawani, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti and a Legal Practitioner

Waziri Atiku Abubakar, the former Vice President of Nigeria, has attempted to become President of our nation in no less than six times and his latest attempt is the 7th.

In 1993, he contested the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential primaries and lost to MKO Abiola. In 2007, he contested as the Action Congress (AC) presidential candidate in the general elections and finished third behind Umaru Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari. In 2011, he lost the PDP presidential primaries to incumbent Goodluck Jonathan.

In 2015, he lost the APC presidential primaries to Muhammadu Buhari. In 2019, he was the PDP presidential candidate and lost the election to Buhari. In 2023, he was the PDP presidential candidate and lost the election to Bola Tinubu. 7th bid He is now on his 7th bid. There are only six documented cases of individuals who have contested the presidency of their country seven times or more. They are: 1) Pascual Racuyal of the Philippines who contested 11 times 2) Nicolás Zúñiga y Miranda of Mexico who contested 10 times 3) Harold Stassen of the United States of America who contested nine times 4) Jack Fellure of the United States of America who contested nine times 5) Lyndon LaRouche of the United States of America who contested eight times And finally… 6) Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal who contested seven times. Every single one of them failed to ever win the presidency of their nations except Wade who won on the 5th and 6th attempts and lost on the 7th.

Atiku has failed in all of his six attempts over the last 33 years and he is now on his 7th. Stop and think about that. In a country of 230 million people, one man has been trying to be President for 33 years, has failed each time, and is now attempting it again for the 7th time. Again, consider the fact that the same man has been a member of seven political parties since he joined politics in 1991 and four political parties (one of which is the PDP which he left and rejoined twice) since 1999. Political wanderer Given this, it is fair to say that he is a political wanderer. Unlike leaders elsewhere, to Atiku, the party is nothing but a vehicle of power that exists for him and he does not exist for the party. It is of course his right to keep trying but this could also be legitimately regarded as an obsession.

Nothing is more indicative of that obsession than his attempt to mobilise the governors of the PDP to move against his leader, President Olusegun Obasanjo, a man who had nominated him as his running mate for the second time, topple him as the party’s presidential candidate and take his place as the flag bearer in 2003. This was not only a case of ingratitude but also treachery and especially so because Obasanjo had trusted him to raise all the finances that were needed for that second run. Atiku allegedly raised the money through private donors and then tried to browbeat the President so that he would not be reelected. Two interventions saved Obasanjo. Firstly, the God factor, which was the most important, and, secondly, a stupendously wealthy businessman from Kano (who I shall not name) who made virtually all the money that was needed available for both the delegates at the convention and the election itself. That is how Atiku’s rebellion and ‘Absalom’ agenda was thwarted and crushed. Yet despite that Obasanjo refused to drop him mid-stream as his running mate and he was elected as Vice President on the same ticket of the man that he had sought to humiliate and destroy.

Atiku is no Wade It was after the second term began after the 2003 election that the real war between the two camps began and I am proud to say that yours truly and others like Nasir El-Rufai, Nuhu Ribadu, Akin Osuntokun, Abiye Sekibo, Frank Nweke, Uba Sani, Adamu Bello, Julius Ihonvbere and many others that were either working in the Presidency or were Ministers together with others like Peter Odili of Rivers State, Umaru Yar’Adua of Katsina State, Ahmad Makarfi of Kaduna State and a number of other governors took the battle to the gates of the Vice President and gave him hell over the next four years. By the time it was all over, we had put him in his place and proved to him that treachery and rebellion are as the sin of witchcraft and never pay. His political career has not been the same since as he stumbled from one failed bid to the other leaving a legacy of division and destruction in his path. Some may argue that if Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal could eventually win after five attempts Atiku may do so after seven but the truth is that Atiku is no Abdoulaye Wade. He does not have the latter’s sincerity of purpose, courage, sense of loyalty, humility, discipline and patriotism.

Outside of that, unlike Wade, Atiku Abubakar is more of a pragmatic businessman who is more interested in rebellion and treachery than a statesman who puts the interest of the nation before his own. Unlike Atiku, Wade would always endeavour to do the right thing by others, especially in the case of those who stood by him. Unlike Atiku, he appreciated the importance of loyalty, he did not covet the position of his leaders, he understood the power and dynamics of patience and he was not one to act desperately. Unlike Atiku, he NEVER tried to undermine, destroy, humiliate, discredit or topple his benefactors and neither did he attempt to dishonour standing agreements or deny others the presidency whenever it was their turn.

Wade played politics within the rules and norms: he did not attempt to subvert or violate them to his own advantage. Atiku, on the other hand, revels in subversion and believes that Nigeria was established for his benefit alone. This is a man that has consistently opposed and fought against the idea of power shift to the South ever since he left office in 2007. He enunciated that notion and willingly espoused that grave and grievous injustice. He challenged Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, stayed with the coalition that removed him from power in 2015, took the PDP ticket from Nyesom Wike in 2022, ran against Bola Tinubu and Peter Obi in 2023 and is doing so again in 2027.

Contempt for the South What remains striking is that he has done this even in cycles when power shift to the South was the prevailing argument from much of the political class, including many Northern leaders who backed it in the name of rotation, fairness and equity. Clearly, he has contempt for Southern aspirations. That is his mindset though he masks it well. Simply put, he has a sectional outlook and not a national one and for this reason God will not allow him to achieve his ambition.

Outside of that, you cannot repay good with evil and escape it before the Lord. Atiku will learn this the hard way and so will those that stand with him. Is it any wonder that this time around he has employed the services of a controversial lobbyist to help him in return for a massive dollar fee? In the history of our country, we have never witnessed a presidential candidate employ foreign publicity firms to openly run down, threaten, slander and disparage the very Nigerians he wants to lead simply because he is so desperate to be President. Yet he will fail and, more importantly,, if the necessary evidence is adduced, he will be made to face the law for alleged corruption when he was Vice President. The most obvious allegation concerns the Mambilla Power Plant case but there are other allegations bordering on the Siemens case, the Halliburton case, the INTELS case, the William J. Jefferson U.S. Congressman case (for which the Congressman went to jail), the Leno Adesanya power plant case (which is reported to have been re-opened) and other serious allegations of corruption and offshore payments involving millions of dollars which, though yet to be proven, have left many unanswered questions. To be fair, none of these cases have, at least so far, resulted in a Nigerian trial or conviction but all have left a paper trail in the files of foreign regulators and many unanswered questions at home. Yet it didn’t stop there. Atiku’s worst crime was not the allegation of financial impropriety but his relentless determination to undermine and destabilise the government that he was elected to serve and to utterly destroy his principal whom he obviously hated with what the Bible described as “a perfect hatred”. Atiku betrayed Obasanjo to such a point that I, as Minister of Aviation at the time, was constrained to demand that he should be thrown out of Cabinet meetings on two separate occasions during full sessions of Cabinet.

I did this during the course of the meeting and in the presence of every single Cabinet member and when I did so there was pindrop silence in the Cabinet chambers. The first time, Obasanjo saved him from the humiliation and appealed to me and the other Ministers to allow him to stay whilst he sat there looking daggers at me and clearly in a state of shock. The second time, which was a few weeks later, I made another demand in our Cabinet meeting under ‘other matters’ that if he did not get up and leave the chamber as a consequence of his betrayals and treachery against our President, then we the Ministers would walk out and leave him to conduct the Federal Executive Council meeting alone with the President. Obasanjo again appealed to us to allow him to stay but compelled him to apologise to the entire Cabinet there and then for his treachery and outrageous behaviour all motivated by the fact that he wanted to topple the President and take his place. Atiku apologised there and then to the entire Cabinet and consequently was allowed to stay at the Federal Executive Council meeting but he NEVER attended another Cabinet meeting after that. This episode proves how over-ambitious he was as Vice President and how he coveted the seat of the man that brought him out of obscurity in Adamawa State and made him his Vice President.

He repaid Obasanjo’s good with evil just as he later repaid Tinubu’s, Buhari’s and the old PDP’s good with evil in later years. Today he is so desperate to win the presidential election that he has not only destroyed his old party, the PDP, by splitting it into two but he also did the same to the ADC, his new one, by breaking it in two and driving the Obi/Kwankwaso faction out to join a new party called the NDC. Anytime he does not get his way or his ambition to become the flag bearer of whichever party he is in is threatened, the party must be broken. In the case of PDP, he single-handedly killed what was once Nigeria’s dominant party and finally buried it in 2019.

That is his political legacy: Chaos and destruction. Subsidy Worse still, as presidential candidate of the ADC, he has said he will restore fuel subsidy just to get votes knowing that in the process of implementing this disastrous policy he will utterly destroy Nigeria and cause us to lose all the economic gains we have made in the last three years. Let him be aware that there is nothing worse than attempting to destroy the future of your people just because you want to be President. Again let him be reminded that to pay a foreign PR company led by a controversial character who uses his wife’s surname rather than his father’s, $1.2 million to denigrate, undermine, demonise, vilify, malign and destroy your President in the international media just because you covet his seat is unacceptable. History is against you Waziri.

No person in the world has ever tried to be President of his country seven times or more and has won except for Abdoulaye Wade and, like I said, you are no Wade and neither do you share his gravitas nor have his grit. Statistically and historically, you have little chance of winning on your seventh attempt or of ever becoming President. It appears that the Living God has placed a divine injunction on your ambition. This will be proved in January 2027 when you will be defeated by your old friend and arch-nemesis and be compelled to go back to Dubai and retire in peace. I come in peace, Waziri, and I wish you well.

•Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation, Nigeria’s Ambassador-Designate to South Africa, Lesotho and Estawani, the Sadaukin Shinkafi, the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, the Otunba of Joga Orile, the Aare Ajagunla of Otun Ekiti and a Legal Practitioner

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