Atiku: Ambition, Age and Agility, by Emmanuel Aziken

For Atiku Abubakar, the way to 2027 may person conscionable met a uncommon stumble arising from aclumsy interview.

In a BBC Hausa Service interview, Atiku — who turns 79 adjacent period — was quoted arsenic saying helium would beryllium consenting to measurement down for a younger aspirant, if specified a campaigner emerged and commanded wide acceptability.

The remark —brief, conditional, and arguably reflective — was each the ammunition the media needed. Within hours, starring newspapers and online platforms seized the soundbite, splashing headlines of Atiku’s expected governmental retreat crossed beforehand pages and timelines.

Indeed, wrong hours of the interview, the Atiku adjacent ellipse of strategists and loyalists, convened and declared the BBC communicative a misrepresentation. They insisted their main had been quoted retired of context, stressing that Atiku remains resolute and acceptable to contention — not concede — the 2027 statesmanlike race.

But the genie was already retired of the bottle.

For the archetypal time, Atiku Abubakar, the antheral agelong touted arsenic Nigeria’s astir prepared president-in-waiting, had inadvertently invited the federation to revisit a question his handlers person cautiously sidestepped: is property yet catching up with the Wazirin Adamawa?

The Man Who Once Had Nigeria Figured Out

No 1 doubts Atiku’s resume. Among Nigeria’s post-1999 elite, fewer transportation a broader governance blueprint oregon nationalist network. As Vice President betwixt 1999 and 2007, Atiku carved a estimation for argumentation depth, reform-mindedness, and organization vision.

Your analogous remembers his National Development Project (NDP) — a Non-Governmental Organisation led by Dr. Usman Bugaje. It was a argumentation deliberation hub churning outideas connected economical diversification, acquisition reform, and law restructuring. For many, the NDP symbolized Atiku’s cerebral attack to power.

But successful politics, ideas unsocial are ne'er neutral.

His boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, saw the NDP not arsenic a argumentation incubator but a governmental launchpad — a shadiness run bureau preparing for an Atiku presidency. The friction that followed defined their eventual divided and hardened Atiku’s representation arsenic the restless heir denied his inheritance.

The Nationalist Without Borders

 Beyond policy, Atiku’s idiosyncratic beingness and concern scope projected a cosmopolitan individuality uncommon among Nigeria’s powerfulness elite. A Fulani Muslim from Adamawa, Atiku has consistently challenged taste and spiritual pigeonholes.

He famously joined extracurricular his portion and religion — archetypal to Titi Abubakar, a Yoruba Christian, and aboriginal to the Igbo calved erstwhile NTA newsman turned academic, Jennifer(or Jamila), further cementing his cross-cultural appeal.

For years, this pan-Nigerian illustration strengthened Atiku’s assertion to nationalist leadership: a person “blind” to people and guided by technocratic instinct.

Yet, arsenic Nigeria’s authorities progressively tilt toward youthful vigor and integer populism, the elder statesman’s once-endearing broadness is being tested against new-generation impatience.

Age, Health, and the Buhari-Tinubu Burden

It is not Atiku’s intellect that troubles Nigerians — it is his calendar age.

After 2 successive presidencies nether septuagenarian leaders — Buhari and Tinubu —Nigerians person grown wary of aged presidents who look much astatine location overseas connected aesculapian vacations than connected section tours.

President Buhari’s tenure was marred by extended infirmary stays successful London. President Tinubu, though lone a twelvemonth younger than Atiku, has faced persistent questions implicit fittingness and endurance, amplified by constricted nationalist appearances and agelong absences.

Many present judge that enactment stamina — not conscionable strategy — is Nigeria’s foremost electoral criterion.

And for Atiku, nary substance however superb his mind, his 79 candles whitethorn beryllium harder to extinguish successful the tribunal of nationalist sentiment than immoderate BBC misquote.

A canvass by the online newspaper, GWG.ng instantly aft Atiku’s BBC interrogation came retired asked respondents if determination was immoderate acceptable aspirant younger than Atiku presently successful the race. 83% of respondents said that was astatine slightest one.

That should resonate with the Atiku’s campy that irrespective of its assertions that galore radical are present opening to deliberation little of the erstwhile vice-president.

 Atiku’s Counter argument: Experience Trumps Age