The Presidency, Atiku Abubakar, and the nexus of “time and chance” -By Victor Ikhatalor

Time and chance, it has been said, happens to us all. For Nigerian politicians, it very certainly happens to them all.

However, “time and chance”, cannot be divorced from the context of the “providential”, this writer will at every step, elucidate the hand of “man”, thus, giving a more “literal” contextualisation of “time and chance”.

Unlike in jurisdictions where democracy is firmly entrenched and where commitment, loyalty and ability yields dividends in politics hallmarked by ideology and party supremacy, largely diminishing the “time and chance” factor – in Nigeria, the unwholesome single political culture that cuts across Nigerian politics, which amongst other ills, nurtures the imposition of candidates, makes “time and chance”, a very real factor.

That “time and chance” did not align for some very matured adults, who could possibly be parents of other adults; witnessed crying and gnashing their teeth at the recently concluded 2022 All Progressive Congress (APC) National Convention, would, I am sure, in their estimation, be an understatement!

What is without doubt, a recurring theme, is that, “time and chance” have certainly aligned for all the men who have become president of Nigeria in this Fourth Republic. Each of those men’s ascension, most strikingly, gives verve to Chinua Achebe’s: “ those whose palm-kernels were cracked by a benevolent spirit”.

For Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo, the fall of giants heralded the “cracking of his karnels”. Gen. Sani Abacha, a man who fancied himself; dictator for life, bit the dust. Chief Moshood Abiola, winner of the freest and fairest election ever seen on these shores, passed on.

The lives of numerous great Nigerian citizens was sacrificed at the altar of a dictator’s malaise. It was a time of implosions and explosions. To assuage the South-west, whose son, Chief MKO Abiola received the truest Pan-Nigerian mandate ever bestowed, and to set the tottering country on an even keel – a man from South-west Nigeria had to be handed the presidency of Nigeria.

The Board of Directors of Nigeria Plc jaw-jawed and Gen. Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo, a man recently freed from an incarceration that was meant to see the end of him, as it did for his friend and second-in-command, in his first incarnation as head of government, Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua; was anointed and elected Nigeria’s inaugural president in it’s Fourth Republic. Time and chance!

As governor’s went, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was a recluse. Up until President Obasanjo literally showed up with him at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential primaries in 2006, his only name recognition was that he was, firstly, the younger brother of late Shehu Yar’Adua, and then, governor of Katsina state.

And bear in mind, this was in a time of budding emperor state governor’s, who but for the equal or superior “bloody mindedness” of Obasanjo, who had more power levers and was rather forever in a haste to crank them; would have assumed unbridled emperorship privileges they have since straddled.

And yes, Nigerians, and certainly, “finger-licking” politicians have previously seen the very first episode in the “rivers” of spreading joy series. Dr Peter Odili, former governor of Rivers state, sowed and spread such joy, that leading up to the PDP presidential primaries, it appeared joyous politicians of the PDP extraction had largely come to see him as their candidate in waiting.

That is until the man Adams Oshiomhole, was wont to call, the garrison commander struck. Gen. Obasanjo who had been singularly responsible for torpedoing the ambition of his vice-president, Atiku Abubakar, securing the PDP’s presidential ticket by literally hounding him out of the party; also did in the lofty ambitions of a few other prominent party men. Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was anointed and elected. Time and chance!

Any book detailing Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s rise from obscurity to prominence will, I am sure, elicit more than cursory approbation from those inclined to “providential” interpretations. Meteoric and fortuitous are certain imprints in an unbroken and unique trajectory that saw him move from deputy governor to governor, to vice president and then president.

An unassuming environmental functionary, as the PDP geared up to inherit power from the military in 1999, Jonathan was tailor made to fit a dual-purpose. He would be an “offering”, to secure votes from a section of Bayelsa and also more importantly be the “dream” amenable deputy to the governor.

An obscure zoologist, hitherto not a mainstream politician, would not constitute a threat to the “strongman” politician and governor.

For the late Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the reluctant Jonathan, who he really didn’t know first-hand but who came highly recommended, was a safe bet, over “open-eyed” politicians, who he certainly knew first-hand. Hand-picked and pressed to serve, Jonathan was elected deputy governor in 1999.

Goodluck Jonathan. The unintrusive deputy, loyal and always with a ready yes-sir, was in place to step up a notch, when the whirlwind unleashed by President Obasanjo’s “power levers” swept Alamieyeseigha out of office in 2005.

With the 2007 general elections around the corner, Goodluck Jonathan, having been governor for neigh on two years(completing Alamieyeseigha’s second term, was all set to seek a governorship mandate in his own right from Bayelsans, when political machinations in Abuja intervened.

In the aftermath of kingmaker Obasanjo, bulldozing the presidential candidature of Umaru Yar’Adua through at the 2006 PDP presidential primaries, he needed a second name on the ticket(a state governor), from the now very restive oil region of the Niger Delta – to politically “settle” them.

Handicapped by political and corruption baggage, President Obasanjo looked askance at political heavyweights(Niger Delta governors) actively campaigning to become the PDP VP candidate.

Fearing the very able abilities of these aspiring political “lions and tigers” to devour a “gentlemanly” President Yar’Adua to be, Obasanjo, like Alamieyeseigha before him set his sights on the unassuming, apparently still political “cub”, considered malleable and ably loyal; Goodluck Jonathan.

Again fitting a dual-purpose, Goodluck Jonathan was anointed and in 2007, became vice president of Nigeria.

Even though he did not lurk in the shadows with a “stiletto” under his toga, ala “Brutus”, to do harm to his “Caesar”, a more sinister deadly shadow that could not be deterred struck – and President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, a gentleman who we fleetingly saw also had great resolve; ultimately passed.

Nature abhors vacuum. There can certainly be no vacuum in government. As Yar’Adua’s health deteriorated and trumping the best efforts of the presidency’s “cabal”, who according to Patience Jonathan, had so sidelined the VP, he practically only went to the office to read newspapers; Jonathan was elevated to acting president in February, 2010 via the National Assembly’s “doctrine of necessity”.

In May, 2010, after the demise of Yar’Adua, he moved from being acting president to substantive president. Finishing out the rump of President Yar’Adua’s first term, he was elected in his own right as president in 2011.

His improbable odyssey in political office, that ultimately saw him become Nigeria’s president reeks of “time and chance”, again and again and again and again!

During the season of electioneering leading up to the 2011 elections, we were told that the man we had all come to know as Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, also had Azikiwe in the mix somewhere. For the 2015 elections, he maybe should have added another name, say, Ahmadu, but then again maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. Nigerians, it appeared wanted change.

And so the man who had shed a tear or two, after being thwarted for the third time running in his apparently “life-long” quest to bring “change” to Nigeria as a democratically elected president, finally had the stars align.

Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, had sobbed openly upon losing the 2011 elections, vowing it was his last attempt. The man who had threatened that the dog and baboon will be soaked in blood and whatnot – fallouts from his previous contestations to be president – leading up to the 2015 elections, pitched his lot with disparate forces(bent on grabbing power), the most notable and decisive of which was: Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

Gen. Buhari, who in his previous three tries(2003, 2007 and 2011) to be elected president, always had a decent chunk of support, almost wholly from the northern part of the country, was re-packaged by the Bola Tinubu machine (and other co-travellers of course, lest they have a fit) and sold to Nigerians as the man to bring “change” to their lives.

Nigerians were fed up with the PDP. Goodluck Jonathan was considered a pawn and the plaything of “stronger forces”. Bombs were going off all over the place. Insecurity was raging and terrorists had hoisted their flag on Nigerian sovereign soil. Northern power brokers had come to sow the idea(on ready fertile ground) that a continued Jonathan presidency equated a usurpation of the norths time to rule.

The unique set of circumstances at the time, was an opportunity for someone to ride into government on the wave of discontent of a significant portion of Nigerians – and so step in Buhari and the APC, the newly forged political party ready to take advantage.

The alignment and realignment of political “lions and tigers” that saw a party, the APC, for the first time in the Fourth Republic, pose a credible threat to the PDP, who had hitherto largely monopolized such political “devouring” might was critical. In Nigeria’s politics, the jiggery-pokery tools of trade that political players tot along is crucial in winning elections that when stripped in “daylight”, are revealingly, base, crude contestations for power.

With the pivotal joining together of the might of Asiwaju Tinubu (South-west votes) and Gen. Buhari (Northern votes), the die was cast. Jega did not go into his office as a distraught Minister instructed and Buhari, after the umpteenth try, emerged president. Time and chance!

The first time Alhaji Atiku Abubakar threw his hat in the ring to seek the presidency, was in 1993, during the ill-fated democratic experimentations of the “Maradonic” Gen. Ibrahim Babangida. Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola emerged as candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from that contest.

Hounded out of the PDP, a party he helped form and was a cornerstone of, by his principal, Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku was at it again as he sought to succeed Obasanjo (blessing or no) in 2007. He joined the defunct Action Congress (AC) and was given it’s mandate as candidate for the presidency. He was trounced at the polls to come in a distant third to PDP’s, Umaru Yar’Adua.

With Obasanjo out of the way, Atiku Abubakar got back into the PDP fold to consummate a life-long yearning. Outspent and outmaneuvered by Jonathanian forces, he lost the PDP ticket for the 2011 elections to incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan.

Disgruntled, ahead of the 2015 elections, Alhaji Abubakar, never one to give in on his dreams, was amongst the tidal wave of frontline political actors who swapped the old PDP restaurant, sorry, party, for the new glistering APC. He sought the newly formed party’s presidential ticket, but was easily bested by the Buhari-Tinubu combo.

Considering the life-long ambition bit, he again doubled down and fought hard to secure the ticket of the PDP(yes, he was back again) as it’s candidate for the presidential elections in 2019.

Undaunted by the surging tide, emanating from rave reviews (finger-lickers again) from the latest installment in the “rivers” of spreading joy series, he rode high and won the ticket of the PDP. Alas, it seemed not enough as Nigerians were seemingly not yet tired of Buhari’s “change” and apparently desired a “next level”. Atiku lost.

And now it begins again. A life-long journey that began in 1993, that has seen him contest to be president four other times( 2007, 2011, 2015 and 2019) finally threatens to reach an abrupt end in 2022. The challenges this time are enormous but if we know anything about Atiku, it is that he seemingly only does; enormous.

The man is incorrigibly locked in on his quest. He is acutely aware that “time” is no longer on his side due to his age. Critically, as his journey has revealed, the vagaries of life cannot be manipulated to align to man’s every whim. Can Atiku surmount the very “clear and present” hurdle that a clamour for southern presidency at this “time” represents(especially in a highly polarised country like Nigeria).

Even if he somehow manages to bludgeon his way to the PDP”s presidential ticket, the bile that it will leave (from southern quarters) will surely be his undoing.

Nyesom Wike, Governor of Rivers state, and allegedly the foremost financier of the PDP, not only has his hat in the ring, but is also a leading voice in the clamour for a southern candidate.

Wike, will have his say and fight to the finish and if anything, you can be sure be knows how to “fight”. An Atiku, mortally frightened (and that is not good), in full cognizance that this is the last possible time to reach for his dream, has it would seem, decided to play “deaf” to southern aspirations and “roll the dice”.

Will the stars ever align for Atiku Abubakar. The time again, does not seem right and he can look no further that the incumbent, President Buhari for further insight.

Time and time again, Buhari tried to buck the right timing. Against Obasanjo – when South-western presidency was tacitly given the nod across Nigeria. Against Yar’Adua, when only northerners would vote for him and southerners did not have his “time”. And against Jonathan(in 2011), again, when the aforementioned southern sentiment still held sway.

Buhari finally got it(in 2015) at a “time” when the Tinubu factor took away his southern impediment and more crucially, when time met with chance – for they cannot be isolated.

Goodluck Jonathan, could highlight further. Whereas in his first outing as presidential candidate in 2011, time and chance combined to take him to victory, but the same could not be said at his next outing in 2015, when amongst other factors, northern oligarchs believed him to be usurping the “time” of the north. He had the “chance” but not the “time” and lost.

Perhaps, Atiku Abubakar’s best “chance” was when as vice president, he was urged to usurp Obasanjo, thus denying him a second term in 2003.

The ” time” could not have been right as Nigerians across board had conceded the Presidency to the South-west, but since it was touted by some that Obasanjo, had pledged to do only a single term, then perhaps, the “time” factor could have been navigated, especially as any candidate of the PDP would have won elections at that time(so strong were their stranglehold).

That “time”, leading to the 2003 elections, was without doubt, the only point, in his long quest for Nigeria’s top job, that he had the best “chance”.

For Wazirin Adamawa, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, “time and chance”, just seem never to align. His quest to achieve his life-long ambition, however continues apace.

Victor Ikhatalor
Twitter: @MyTribeNigeria
Email: kingjvic7@gmail.com