It is now a fact of the public market place that Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president to Olusegun Obasanjo, is now the presidential candidate of the People Democratic Party [PDP].
As such, he is expected to carry the banner of his political party [PDP] into the 2019 general election and even greater than this task is a more herculean assignment for him. He is now the greatest individual challenger to Muhammadu Buhari in contesting for the presidency, come 2019.
It is like saying that Atiku Abubakar, by picking the PDP ticket, has become the only one person to decide the continuity or otherwise of Buhari as president of Nigeria henceforth.
He got the ticket in Port Harcourt during the PDP delegates’ congress, conducted last week Saturday, against two major odds and both [odds] are worth mentioning for analysis.
The first and very gigantic odd came from his former boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo as the latter vowed that he would ensure that Atiku never ascend to be president of Nigeria. He even mentioned about a month ago that denying the Waziri Adamawa from becoming president was a great service to motherland – Nigeria. In other word and by implication, he [Obasanjo] would be harming Nigeria’s interests should he be alive and seeing Atiku becoming the president.
Atiku is not president yet while Obasanjo is not dead yet also. But by picking the PDP presidential candidate ticket to contest the 2019 presidential election, Atiku might as well be on his way to becoming the president – it is a possibility because he has cleared the first hurdle and every other thing to the Villa might just be falling in place for him. In the other hand, and this is very pivot, given the good health record of Obasanjo [he confirmed this a few days ago when he completed his medical checkup in that first-class medical facility in Bayelsa Sate] he is most likely to remain alive to see Atiku Abubakar being sworn-in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on May 29, 2019.
These all remain permutations on assumption of some other contending factors within the dynamics of political display because getting the ticket to contest in a presidential election is different entirely from garnering enough votes across the country for securing the occupancy of the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja. However, let one fact be made known here, and now. If Obasanjo could not stop Atiku Abubakar from emerging as the presidential candidate of the PDP with all the atrocious venom he deployed into the battle, he might, most likely, not be able to stop voters in Nigeria not voting for the Adamawa “big Boy”.
This fact that Atiku clinched the “PDP cherished trophy” ticket has much lessons for humanity generally and the retired Army General; with the advantage of being Nigeria;s president two times, in particular.
One of the lessons is the fact that it is only people who are ungodly and fools that play God in affairs of other human beings. This is because the Creator of heaven and earth would always remain God while all mortals shall remain what they are – perishable elements. As such, the grip one human being has over his or her co-human being is very much limited or non-existent at most times. It behooves those that God exalted and made powerful in affairs of men to always remember that the “most powerful is watching the powerful ones”.
Another lesson is the fact that it is only God that makes Kings, ditto rulers, to rule over men. In appointing rulers of men, God is merely giving authority, albeit temporarily, to rule over others. It is for the ruler, so made by God, in overseeing affairs of men within the appointed time or allocated time by God for that assignment, to be very conscious that he would be reporting his period of stewardship to the Immortal God and that the Almighty would hold him accountable for every of his daily action while he acted. He, the ruler, will be vicariously liable for his deeds while representing God over affairs of men.
There is yet another lesson Baba Obasanjo might want to learn from this inglorious but failed battle against Atiku – but that is if he would be willing to learn. Any human being in this life that is not conversant with the word “forgiveness” is entirely far from God and it shall never be possible for God to keep him in His memory for anything good. Every human being is fallible hence we are all replaceable. Any infallibility attached to any human being, in either temporary or spiritual capacity, is a great fallacy.
Let us just mention one more lesson for Baba’s attention. There is no individual man on earth that knows it all. Any claimant to that capability is a great delusion. It therefore stands that Obasanjo’s claim of having solution to all problems in Nigeria, from Independence till date, would always remain one huge exercise in futility.
These are just few of many lessons that former President Olusegun Obasanjo can learn on this Atiku matter and there is no time or age which is too late for someone to learn in life. There is also no time is too late as one is alive to ask the Creator of Heaven and Earth for forgiveness. Let those who have ears hear these words of wisdom.
Permit me to say one more word on this before drawing the curtain. There is no doubt about the fact that Olusegun Obasanjo is a special creation of God. He is a particular breed of humanity. He is a Genius either one likes to admit it or not. Knowledge tells me that his types are few per each generation. It is for this reason that l refer to him as an Institution, Enigma, a Principality and Power, a Colossus and Oracle. He is over-endowed with Common Sense. He is brutally fearless. He is a Philomena.
It has not mattered that he did it well at all times or not, but the fact remains that everything have ended well with him. Nature has always conspired with him to see that happening. There are avalanche of evidences to buttress this claim but there is no time to recount them here. He has always survived where others perished. He would always be at a place of glory at the right time to collect crowns where others have toiled and worked hard without any reward. That is just his destiny and it is for this that one can only disregard and discards him to one’s peril.
Atiku Abubakar would have learnt his lessons from the bitter battle his former boss fought against him, because there must have been a few bad things the latter knows about him that we are not privy to. One can only advice Atiku to deploy all those things [negative things Baba knows about him] that Obasanjo alleged against him into positive usage for the benefit of Nigeria and Nigerians if [and it is a big if] he makes it to the other side of that fortified house in the Villa.
The second odd that Atiku Abubakar conquered before picking the ticket was that formidable gang-up against him by the trio of Governors Nyeson Wike [Rivers], Aminu Waziri Tambuwal [Sokoto] and Ayo Fayose [Ekiti]. It was all for the reason of Tambuwal becoming the PDP flag bearer for the 2019 presidential election that the trio came together to hatch such a politically demonic plan of stopping Atiku Abubakar by all means.
It was for the purpose of stopping and Atiku and ensuring the manifestation of Tambuwal that Ayo Fayose; Ekiti State Governor, played all the games in the books in stopping all party chieftains of the PDP in the South/West from emerging as Chairman of the Party during last year National Convention of the Party. His game plan then was if he could stop any one from that zone from becoming National Chairman of the Party, it would open the door for him in becoming the preferred vice-presidential candidate later. He found a willing ally in Nyeson Wike; Governor of Rivers State, but he did not know however that his counterpart is also eyeing that position. The National Convention of the Party came, the position of chairmanship, by the conspiracy of Wike and Fayose, was zoned to the South/South where Uche Secondus had been positioned to pick it.
It is in assuring the fruition of the conspiracy to stop Atiku Abubakar and making the Tambuwal/Wike ticket possible that Wike deployed some gutter-like tactics of bringing the PDP presidential primaries venue to Port Harcourt. He even went for fowl languages, including threatening the Party with daring consequences if the Party moved the Congress from Port Harcourt to another State. He was too sure that he would be able to “do everything with the peoples’ oil money” in securing the ticket for Tambuwal and himself, but at the end his “Chicken delivered Goat”, so to say.
Atiku Abubakar survived thse terrific and satanic conspiracies to gathered about One Thousand Five Hundred votes to Tambuwal’s Six Hundred vote. And the remaining is now history. What type of man is Atiku to have survived these two major battles; there were other conspiracies against him that this work cannot contain, and clinched the ticket?
The man has this personalized capability of demystifying things. He demystified the powers and privileges of incumbency against Olusegun Obasanjo when the latter tried his best in removing the former as his vice [president]. He has done it again.
We Atiku Abubakar be able to repeat this magic wand in demystification of things by removing Buhari as President in 2019? Only time shall tell.
*The News Guru [TNG] had an interview encounter with the most senior and celebrated Spymaster of our times, Chief Albert Korubo Horsefall in his house in Ikoyi, Lagos last week. This man is recorded in the history of Security Intelligence all over the world as the only person that presided over both internal and external security apparatus of government.
He was the first Director General of the National Intelligence Agency [NIA]; the NIA is the American equivalent of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] while he later became the Director General of the State Security Services [SSS]; the equivalent of the American Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI]. You may want to know that while the NIA is in charge of Nigeria security externally, the SSS, now DSS [Department of State Security] is in charge of internal security for Nigeria.
He spoke to us on security matters and many other issues across frontiers, during the two hours interview he graciously granted. We shall be running the interview on this page from next week. Keep a date with us please.
Godwin Etakibuebu; a veteran Journalist, wrote from Lagos.
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