Atiku’s 5th serial political voyage In/Out PDP in perspectives

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar may have stimulated populist discourse on his resignation from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and his anticipated membership of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), in congenial perspectives. The action represented a marked historical phenomenon in the political career of the former Vice President, reflecting his 5th serial political voyage in and out of the PDP in the contemporary democratic dispensation.

Paradoxically, the credential of the former Vice President, PDP presidential candidate in the 2023 general elections, indicated Atiku is about the most experienced and longest partisan political actor in the mainstream polity, among the current generation of political elite in the country.

Ironically, he often defects in the build up to general elections for a singular purpose, and that has always been for the presidential ticket of the recipient party.

Atiku Abubakar, 2007 presidential candidate of Action Congress

Atiku’s first political voyage out of the PDP was in 2006 when he joined the Action Congress (AC), where he secured the presidential ticket for the 2007 general elections. Then, he was vice president in the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the PDP government.

From 2007 to date, Atiku has contested as substantive party candidate in 3 presidential elections; and as presidential aspirant in 2 primaries at national conventions in different parties.

Atiku in APC camp in 2014

He was presidential candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in 2007, presidential candidate of the PDP in 2019 and 2023; presidential aspirant in 2011 in the PDP, as well as presidential aspirant in 2015 in the APC; and 2027 in the ADC will mark the 4th as presidential candidate, and 6th attempt for power.
Atiku in alliance with then Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos State, incumbent President Tinubu, formed the Action Congress (AC) from a bulk bloc of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) led by Tinubu, and marginal bloc of the PDP comprising of Atiku and his loyalists.

Atiku’s presidential ambition dates back to the 1990s in the Social Democratic Party (SDP), where he contested for the SDP presidential ticket at the primary but stepped down for late Chief M.K.O. Abiola when there was stalemate at the national convention held in Jos, Plateau State.

Atiku stepped down and supported Abiola against Babagana Kingibe, giving Abiola victory as SDP presidential candidate for the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Abiola was perceived to have won the election which was annulled by the military junta and proclaimed inconclusive then.

Invariably, Atiku had played partisan politics in the era of M.K.O. Abiola, Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, Adamu Ciroma, Babagana Kingibe, Chief Tony Anenih, Abubakar Rimi, etc., at the national level, before the advent of the contemporary democratic dispensation.

Atiku back home in PDP in 2023

While Atiku aspired for the president in the 1993 transition, incumbent President Bola Tinubu won election into the Nigerian Senate, which, however, lasted for 3 months before the transition was scuttled on the annulment and inconclusiveness of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

Atiku had won the 1999 governorship election in Adamawa State before former President Obasanjo chose him for vice presidential candidate for the presidential election. He ceded the governorship seat to Boni Haruna, who was the deputy governorship candidate.

Obasanjo had endorsed then Governor Umar Musa Yar’Adua of Katsina State as his successor and the PDP 2007 presidential candidate. Atiku was then provoked to quit the PDP for the AC, and had to navigate the storm of legal battles.

Atiku lost the 2007 presidential election to late President Umar Musa Yar’Adua of the PDP; but not after series of victorious legal battle with his principal and the PDP government.

Thereafter, the former vice president returned to the PDP, where he aspired for the PDP presidential ticket for the 2011 general elections. This marked the second party switch in Atiku’s political voyage.
The contest for the PDP 2011 presidential ticket generated immense but mitigated political aspirations after agitations from the North to complete late President Yar’Adua’s tenure, in the context of zoning and power rotation, as well as maneuvers to stop former President Gooidluck Jonathan from being the PDP presidential candidate, failed.

Northern leaders organized mock primary election to nominate a northern consensus candidate to battle the then incumbent President Jonathan at the PDP National Convention for the 2011 presidential ticket.
Late Alhaji Adamu CIroma, Chief Audu Ogbe, etc. were among the northern leaders who coordinated the mock election for a northern consensus candidate for the PDP presidential primary.

Remarkable northern PDP presidential aspirants who participated in the mock election for a consensus candidate included retired General Ibrahim Babangida, Atiku Abubakar, Dr. Bukola Saraki, among others.

Atiku won the northern consensus poll and emerged the aspirant of the North for the PDP national convention to contest against Jonathan, who won the PDP presidential ticket at the party primary election; and subsequently, won the 2011 presidential election.

Unsuccessful vehement movement and agitations of the northern leaders to compel former President Jonathan to concede the PDP presidential ticket to the North for the 2015 general elections provoked another exit of Atiku Abubakar, with mass exodus of PDP members, to the emergent All Progressives Congress (APC), the leading Opposition Coalition Party.

Some have argued that Northern stakeholders in the PDP demonstrated apolitically unstrained anger, intolerance, impatience, unwillingness to make sacrifice, in their mass exodus to form a power bloc identified as the New PDP – in the emergent APC. Those who stayed behind in the PDP only remained to ensure the planned treachery and sabotage of the electoral process against the PDP was well executed for the victory of the APC in the 2015 general elections. They succeeded and the PDP lost to the emergent APC.

On his political sojourn in the APC, Atiku aspired and contested for the 2015 presidential ticket of the party, yet, lost to late President Muhammadu Buhari at the national convention held in Lagos, trailing second. In the ultimate denouement, Atiku lost the presidential ticket both in the PDP and the APC.
Other nPDP presidential aspirants at the APC convention included former Senate President Bukola Saraki, former Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State, former Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso of Kano State, beside others.

Some are of the view that the seeming insensitive intolerance, extremist anger, impatience, inability to make concessions, hypothetically, marked the albatross of PDP political tragedy, which the a priori dominant political party has not been able to recover from since 2015, and perhaps, spilled over to the 2023 intractable crisis that has currently devastated the PDP.

There were indications that the decision of the then incumbent President Jonathan to insist on another term after the first tenure in 2015 may not have been the best for the PDP amidst the monumental crisis which led to eventual political malaise.

The APC sojourn marked Atiku’s 2nd exit from the PDP, but the 3rd party voyage, after his return from the AC for the 2011 polls.

Following the unsuccessful adventure in the APC, Atiku returned to the PDP for the 2019 general elections, making his second return to the PDP, but 4th inter-party switch in his serial political voyage.
Atiku won the PDP presidential ticket for the 2019 elections, defeating Bukola Saraki, Aminu Tambuwal, Musa Kwankwaso, etc, at the party’s national convention. He lost the 2019 presidential election to late President Buhari of the APC.

The former vice president, again, secured the PDP 2023 presidential election. He, however, lost the election to incumbent President Bola Tinubu of the APC, who won on his first attempt at the exalted office of the President.

In the build up to the 2027 general elections, the inability to resolve the post-2023 presidential primary election conflicts has continued to disorganize the PDP, compelling former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to resign from the party; on his third exit from the PDP and 5th political voyage, with the African Democratic Congress (ADC) perceived as his next destination.

The ADC was adopted as the official party of the Coalition Movement which Atiku played significant role to mobilise the Opposition to converge to wrest power from the ruling APC and incumbent President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 general elections.

In the prevailing voyage, remarkable PDP stakeholders, who include former Senate President David Mark, former Governor Sule Lamido, Senator Aminu Tambuwal, among others, have resigned from the PDP to join the ADC.

Meanwhile, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar will be navigating against the elite consensus on zoning of the president to the South in the 2027 elections, as well as the powers of incumbency at the behest of President Tinubu and the APC, including the populist high profile of Peter Obi.