Atiku: A national bridge builder @ 70
Everything I need in life, this country has given me. I’m the one who needs to give back.” - Atiku Abubakar Atiku Abubakar is an outstanding Nigerian. As a politician he has built bridges of national unity across regional and religious lines, contributed to the evolution of our democracy and advanced the cause of the less privileged. As a businessman he has set up and managed successful businesses that provide a source of livelihood for thousands of Nigerians. As an educationist and philanthropist, Atiku has blazed the trail in bringing international standards of education to Nigeria and helped thousands of underprivileged persons with access to a better life.
His success stories in public life, business, politics and philanthropy speak to the core values of hard work, determination, courage, industry, patriotism, tolerance and a generous commitment to giving back to society.
Though far from perfect - like most human beings - his life in very many ways provides good lessons that his peers, aspiring politicians or businessmen and the youth can emulate. And it is for these reasons that his birthday is well deserving of this analysis.
On Friday, 25th November, the former Vice President under the Obasanjo administration, very well preserved for his age, hit the 70th birthday mark. The goodwill messages were many and they cut way across party lines. They ranged from President Muhammadu Buhari who acknowledged his contributions to education and philanthropy to party leaders across the major political parties in Nigeria.
For instance, former President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan called him a patriot and a leader whose service to humanity is noteworthy; the All Progressives Congress (APC) called him a detribalized leader, political icon and philanthropist. Former governor of Lagos State and All Progressives Congress stalwart, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, described him as a dear brother, a man of faith and a leader of substance.
It is a shared consensus by many analysts that Atiku Abubakar is one of the very few leading Nigerian politicians with an appeal that is truly national. As the vice president under Obasanjo, Atiku cultivated a very good relationship with the state governors. His capacity for accommodation and understanding endeared the governors to him. Because of the powerful hold that governors had on the political structures of their home state, the relationship gave him very strong clout. It is widely rumoured that had he decided and insisted on contesting the and Members of the House of Representatives collected on a monthly basis the sums of N15 million and N10 million respectively. What he semantically concealed is the fact that the legislators are not in the National Assembly and collect these funds in their individual capacities, but do so as legitimate representatives of various senatorial and federal constituencies which are distributed throughout length and breath as well as the nooks and crannies of this great country, with each manifesting equally unique challenges and circumstances. It is therefore the height of uninformed presumptuousness for Obasanjo who hails from Ogun State, or any other critic of the legislature to sit in one part of the country and pontificate on matters that border on the relationships between legislators and their constituencies outside his or her locality.
For Obasanjo, his age-old problem with the legislators is that he sees them as individuals who should be amenable to sundry manipulations, forgetting that by the provisions of the Constitution once elected into office, they translate into veritable potentates that qualify to be negotiated with and from the perspective of their constituencies which they represent. It was his failure to appreciate this reality that led to the series of battles he had with the National Assembly during his eight-year tenure as President.
He had come to office in 1999 then with a concealed mandate to wipe out every likely opposition to his authority and started with retiring all military officers who 2003 elections against his principal, former president Olusegun Obasanjo, he would have easily secured the party nomination. Most of the governors were in his hands and would have chosen him over Obasanjo. But he did not succumb to the pressure because the Turakin Adamawa did not want to breach the unwritten rule of power shift between the South and North, which he had helped to fashion at the formative days of the PDP.
The former Vice President has within the past three decades of being in the public spotlight shown that his brand of politics is not defined by any regional imperial agenda and that he is not a religious bigot. Though a devout Muslim, there is no tinge of fanaticism in his actions. Those who know him attest to his ability to work very well with Christians and the premium he places on merit over religious and other sentimental considerations.
Atiku is as much at home in the south as he is in the north where he comes from. His fourth wife - Jemila Atiku Abubakar (Jennifer Iwenjora) - is an Igbo lady from the South East. This makes him an in-law to the Igbos. INTELS, a logistics company which he co-founded in the 1980s is based in Lagos, Calabar, Warri and Port Harcourt in the South West and South-South.
He has a huge network of friends in politics and business. These power networks had held any political office before then and were still serving. This move terminated the blossoming military career of scores of promising officers. Then he conceived the idea of neutralising the National Assembly which he saw as the only likely obstacle to his dictatorial approach to governance. Fortunately for Nigerians the Fourth and Fifth National Assemblies managed his vaunting ambition to compromise the emerging democratic dispensation in the country, including thwarting the infamous attempt to extend his stay in office unlawfully through a third term agenda.
Then were the series of budget wars during which he was believed to have routinely directed the MDAs under the Executive to ignore whatever budget was approved by the National Assembly. Indeed, it was an open secret that throughout his eight years in office, his administration operated two different budgets. While one was submitted for passage by the National Assembly the MDAs were implementing a different version that suited his whims and caprices.
Obasanjo’s grouse with the National Assembly bears a strong resemblance to the story of the dog and grapes by Aesop the Greek fabulist of antiquity. According to the story, a hungry dog saw a tree with ripe grapes dangling seemingly within his reach, and jumped several times to pluck even one to satisfy his hunger. When he eventually failed in his bid he left, sighing and muttering that the grapes were sour. span all shades, regions and religions.
In a highly polarized political system such as ours, it is difficult to find such a high profile politician who has successfully maintained without contradiction a wholly national outlook like Atiku. He remains a model for appropriate political positioning for Nigerian politicians, especially those who desire to lead at the national level.
He has stood out and championed national views that not only acknowledge and reflect the growing tensions in parts of the country but also proffered practical solutions on the basis of common sense rather than regional political correctness borne out of fear of a possible loss of advantage. On the call for re-structuring by sections of the country Atiku is among the first of politicians from the north to speak in support of the call. He said that re-structuring was inevitable and advised that the government should acknowledge the call and fashion out ways to engage those that are clamouring for it on a roundtable.
As his friends, well-wishers, business and political associates mark his 70th birthday, it is important to note that his national appeal is relevant and significant within the context of our current socio-political discourse today.