What informs the frequent trips by Nigeria’s Fourth Republic vice president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, to the Ota residence of his former principal, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo? To make sense of such volleys one has to move back into history to connect it with the present. When Sylvester Stallone declared that “the last fight is on the mountain, you finish and go,” a similar fight seems to await Atiku and his political career as the 2027 general election draws closer. For, come 2027, whether he likes it or not – no matter what he does – signs are clear that unless he succeeds in the current pursuit of trying to midwife a winning coalition for the presidential contest, the former vice president would no longer be a factor in political machinations.
To ensure that such ominous possibility does not come to pass, the Wazirin Adamawa has been engaging in frantic visits to Obasanjo, who aborted his (Atiku’s) gubernatorial mandate to garland him with the position of presidential running mate in 1998. As a young man whose interest in public service propelled him to seek the presidential ticket six years earlier, Atiku saw the opening at the Presidency as a veritable shortcut to realise his presidential ambition. And so, jettisoning the gubernatorial laurel which he won, he tagged on Obasanjo’s agbada tails to become Nigeria’s vice president at the start of the Fourth Republic.
With just a step remaining to mount the next saddle as number one, the Adamawa-born former Customs .
