Atiku and 2019 presidential election, By SANI AUWAL K.

Throughout history men and women of true grit, integrity, courage, vision and compassion have variously held sway in their nations, states or communities transforming, shaping and empowering millions of lives in the noble quest for a just, decent, equitable and egalitarian society not caring whose ox is gored or how tenuous or foreboding the obstacles or challenges they may face.

Winstor Churchill (USA), Fidel Castro (Cuba), Nikita Kruschev (USSR), Mahatma Gandhi (India), and Mao TseTung (China) are few examples of leaders and statesmen who genuinely believed in lifting their people from the depths of despair, deprivation and depression to heights of self actualization, achievement and attainment.

However, the efforts and exertions of these eminent leaders did not go unchallenged as sundry traducers and adversaries variously conspired to negate or dilute their visionary aims and objectives. For instance, Fidel Castro’s revolutionary process of eradicating poverty and inequality in Cuba was vigorously opposed by its giant neighbor the United States of America, which imposed economic and trade blockades on the island all in ruthless and cynical attempts to reverse the gains of Castro’s people’s revolution. Also, Chairman Mao people’s army met stiff resistance from the Nationalist Kuomintang forces in 1947 which led Mao to embark on the epochal Long March, thousands of kilometers east of the capital Beijing, in order to escape annihilation by his well armed foes.

In the Nigerian political firmament, this scenario is quite germane as conservative, parochial and reactionary forces are once again ganging up in an ultimately futile effort to thwart the political, social and economic reform movement led by the undisputed constitutional and technocratic avatar of our time, the foremost paragon of the people’s liberation movement, the indefatigable Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Vice President emertitus of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who is once again poised to re-energise and revitalize the political landscape of the country for better.

Indeed, no other living politician in the history of this nation has so radically influenced the course of events or the constitutional and electoral process like the Wazirin Adamawa since he fortuitously threw his hat into the ring several decades ago with the formation of the Peoples Democratic Movement along with his revered mentor, late Tafidan Katsina, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua. Atiku, along with his numerous political associates and underlings, were committed to a populist, egalitarian and transformational agenda for the nation anchored on democratic and equitable principles where all citizens could aspire for a brighter and more rewarding future free of tyranny, absolutism or represssion by dictatiors or autocrats, be they in military or civilian garb.

While other politicians hid their necks like the proverbial ostrich afraid of military retaliation, an undeterred Atiku fought gallantly for the return to civilian rule in the early 90s, squaring up against the Babangida and Abacha military juntas. Even when his mentor, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, fell victim to the insatiable lust for blood and power, a redoubtable Atiku continued in his relentless clamour for the return to democratic rule which led to the formation of the G-34, forum of eminent statesmen, that birthed the Peoples Democratic Party of which the Wazirin Admawa emerged as its vice presidential candidate and after the 1999 elections, Nigeria’s vice president.

However, it was not yet uhuru as Atiku was soon to realise that his political boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, was still an unreconstructed dictator, even in civilian garb, formenting all manner of constitutional breaches, imposition of illegal state of emergencies and wholesale massacres of civilian population i.e. the Odi and Zaki Biam massacres. Rather than remain silent or docile in the face of Obasanjo’s tyranny, Atiku, the unassailable democrat signaled his staunch opposition to his principal’s shenanigans which culminated poignantly in the woeful defeat of OBJ’s infamous third term bid.

OBJ swore that he would never forgive Atiku Abubakar for marshalling the array of progressive forces who neutralized his third term forays in the bud, thus he has continued to assail the Wazirin Adamawa’s political permutations at every given opportunity both at public and private fora.

However, Atiku Abubakar, the political grandmaster of all times has moved on and is now poised for his decisive trust with destiny as he has formally resigned from the All Progressives Congress citing the parlous state of the economy and the gross incompetence and ineptitude of the Buhari administration in stemming the inexorable slide towards economic chaos and political anarchy.

The perenially paranoid and puerile Buhari government has crudely responded to the former vice president’s deft political maneuver by cancelling the NPA contract that was preexisting with INTELS, a logistics/ oil services company partly owned by Atiku Abubakar, thus throwing an estimated 5,000 employees and their families and dependants into economic woes.

Also, a vicious and insidous media campaign has been launched against this poltical icon by the APC government and its cronies and lackeys with ominous raids by EFCC operatives on his private residences all with the intent to intimidate the irrepressible Atiku Abubakar.

From the foregoing, it is clear that the Buhari regime and the APC’s delusion to progressive and democratic tenets and practices is a mere ruse to pull wool over the eyes of innocuous Nigerians as President Buhari, Ahmed Tinubu, Odigie-Oyegun and other APC leaders are strange bed fellows that came together in order to pauprise the nation’s over 170 million citizens.

They have forgotten the crucial role played by the Wazirin Adamawa in championing the emergence of civilian democracy as well as APC’s stunning victory in the 2015 general elections. However, history is once again in the making as a resolved Atiku Abubakar is poised to rearrange and redirect the political direction of the country for the better even to emerge as a formidable presidential candidate to beat come 2019. Auwal writes from Kaduna

 

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