Atiku Abubakar: Exhaling the past, inhaling the future

out on a sunshine in politics since the aborted third republic,  (circa 1991 – 1993) former vice president Abubakar Atiku has had sour and sweet moments. He has had bad vibrations and sweet undulations. He has been stubborn about his goals and flexible in his methods. Every stride of his echoes with chants of never-let-the-fire-die-inside-me, never-let-the-spirit-be-crushed. It resounds from the inner-self, strong like goonies, persistent like a free spirit.



With eyes primed on the future, the big shrine of leadership, he glides on impact, never saying goodbye. As if prodded by benevolent spirits, he has shown the soul of a gypsy, the heart of a hippie, the spirit of a fairy. From the sting of Aisha Alhassan, Nigeria’s valiant minister of woman affairs, who vowed to sink and swim with him in the 2019 presidential election to his stellar challenge to those who have evidence of his caroused life to step forward, Atiku has demonstrated that everything has a spirit.

He rolls with Dylan Thomas sonorous song that says, “Do not go gentle into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the night.” Atiku enkindles Abraham Lincoln’s exhortation that “I’m a slow walker but I never walk back.” He is the wild, wild horse, born to dance to his heartstrings and to roam without cages. For close to three decades on end, he has been launching himself on every wave. Like the fabled impressions of the four blind men on the shape of the elephant, he is committed yet detached; he is sociable but also a loner.

He is gentle yet tough; he is predictable in his unpredictability. Sometimes his passions run dry. At other times his living spirit is his passion. Wild is his favourite colour; he is not afraid of being the catcher in the rye. His dreams are well kitted with ambition. The ambition has seen him traversing across the parties. Many times, as in his current party, he has been clubbed and bludgeoned, but the lion doesn’t turn around when the small dog barks.

He tells those who keep glued to questions on his fabulous wealth that he has a spotless future, an organic run of play that will make hay. He only perceives a distant smell laden with pulsation and sweet fragrance.  Four times he has stepped out in faith and many hung it all on fate. Same fate may create a rainbow smiling at him. Paths may wiggle, dreams may dissemble, and runways may twig for people to end up in the right place.

The eyes may not see when the mind is blind. But as he forays on, intent on hugging the prized pie, some pundits drive it in that if you gaze long enough into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you. Put in a language most suited for our times, if you stay too long in the toilet the flies will organize a debt visitation. As they say, recovery is not a race. He has had tars brushed all over him, he has seen the smelly sewage of pristine politics, but he is more ‘ he’ than he has ever been, starving his distractions and feeding his focus. Didn’t they say that the sane is easily attracted by other things than power? Although no one can obliterate the past, the future is yet in his power. Power is always given to those who stoop to pick it up.

He was born on November 25, 1946 in Jada, Adamawa State. He served as the second elected vice president of Nigeria from 1999- 2007 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. He served in the Customs and Excise for 20 years, rising to become a deputy director. He retired in April 1989 and ventured into full time business and politics.

He ran for the office of governor in Gongola state (now Adamawa and Taraba states) in 1991 and for the presidency in 2003, placing third after the late MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in the Social Democratic Party, SDP primary. He was elected governor of Adamawa State in 1999 but was picked as vice president while still governor–elect by ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 2007, 2011, and 2015. He has four wives, many children and grandchildren.