Like the black raven in Edgar Allan Poe, nobody foresees that the defeat of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice President, will be a deadly harbinger of political grandstanding, rebelliousness, rascally attitude and treasonable machinations. What is been seen today is a clearer articulation of Atiku’s stubbornness, over-bloated ego, hell raiser-instinct and a dark desire to overturn the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari in a surreptitious US-assisted coup against the newly elected leader of Nigeria. Olorun koni fun e she……. This self-harming tendencies, this grand hostility and the ferocious ambition being played out to the PDP gallery and his large but disgruntled followers is becoming unsettling.
There has been disquiet, discomfort and a sort of dark cloud over the political landscape of Nigeria from the moment Atiku was declared a loser. A loser he is indeed!!! He has been making loud groans through the jaundiced mainstream and social media platforms that supported his presidential ambition. He has been denouncing the last election and deluding his alter ego by regarding himself as the authentic winner of that electoral process. This delusion is daily compounded by a kind of myopia that is common among the so called Nigeria’s ruling class who see themselves as demi-gods of sort.
I have no sympathy for this rock of Adamawa. Adamawa is Atiku’s imperial Rome. He is the most famous product from that state. His word there is law. The high and mighty of Adamawa pay obeisance to their rich mogul son, who, underneath, is a dubious chancer and a thief according to his former boss, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. He is Adamawa’s social and economic redeemer, who, I gathered, is the largest employer of labour in that hapless state that has come under the ugly charm of his Shylock-styled business wizardry. He struts about Adamawa like an immortal.
Atiku’s moment has come and gone. His mythical eight years of oxygenated fame under former President Olusegun Obasanjo was the finest years of his life. He oversaw the economic destiny or destruction of Nigeria. He appropriated juicy government contracts to himself, his cronies, his concubines and his friends. He filibustered Nigeria for eight years and made mockery of our democratic system. He was allowed to run riot with Nigeria’s wealth. Nobody dare reported a powerful Vice-President to the compliant section of our society. Eventually, his many woes will later determine his shameful exit from power but not into discomfiting oblivion.
Rather than melt into socio and political wilderness, Atiku became the maypole around which corrupt politicians will find a perfect home. They massed around him, lapping his money all the way. He bought out competitors, silenced Senate President Bukola Saraki with dollars and used his devilish charm on his earthly enemy – Olusegun Obasanjo – until that baba submitted his dignity for a plate of porridge. Like Croesus, he spent both dollar and naira in a mad and misguided ambition to return back to power and re-rape, re-loot and reset Nigeria of her resources. Atiku got many social media hawks into profitable employment. Yes, the merciless digital court of social media can destroy the political ambition of any candidate in a matter of seconds. Buhari’s security and economic policies became the soft targets of the media hawks engaged and paid by Atiku. Writers, opinion moulders, newscasters and public discourse analysts who were meant to hold a rapacious Atiku to account, expose his lies, his chicanery, his corruption, his dark design for Nigeria of the future all fell under the spell of his M-O-N-E-Y. Atiku was able to criminalise ordinary decent people with his money. I called this new chapter among media supporters of Atiku the submissive void of the Fourth Estate.
The cloud of reasoned engagement and intelligent discourse were darkened by blustering, combating and gabbled defence of his prowess as a businessman and his innate competency to perform fabled miracle with the economy. Shady and dodgy writers without any antecedent suddenly colonised the social media space to articulate for Atiku, a man of complex persona and zilch integrity. Articulating, Atiku articulators most of whom were undiscerning writers began to comb the savannah of social commentary where they lobbed grenades and WMD against anyone who will not inhale the opium of “Articulate”.
It was a well-coordinated act of political mutiny against anyone who will not smell the brewing coffee of Atiku/Obi political matrimony. All the raging but suppressed political hormone of all my Ndigbo friends found release through the opium of “Articulate”. The deeper symbolism for my Igbo friends who supported a damaged good called Atiku was immediately apparent. All the stricture of bad labels on Atiku’s integrity will not deter them. Then I realized that to an average Ndigbo, the notion of possession is more than a clannish necessity. Mr. Peter Obi is Ndigbo. He is their proud possession. Therefore, if Atiku morphed into Satan, they will not abandon their son. Come hell or high water!
Today, Atiku is all alone. Segun Sowunmi and Kola Olgbodiyan, his two impulsive, combative, arrogant, misguided and shameless propagandists, have retreated into the orb of their 9-5 shitholes. Honestly, the emergence of Atiku as a presidential candidate will remain a deep scar across our collective soul. In a rogue gallery, Atiku will be sitting comfortably ahead of the pile. On integrity audit, Atiku scores zero. He represents both the revulsion and attraction of corruption – depends where your bum is! In China, Atiku would have been shot for embezzling state money – a fact documented in a book written by his boss.
Atiku’s politics, at best only answers to personal pathologies. He promised that if elected the president of Nigeria, he will enrich his friends. He will hitch Nigeria to the loin of America to be regarded as US colonised outpost by the virtue of Atiku’s plan to sell NNPC to American oil men. Yet, such a dangerous demagogue still made us zombies because of his stolen wealth. Yes, I recognise that we live in a society of moral fragility where the all-purpose power of money could silence conscience, stifle common sense, truth, confuse rational choice and blind us all into the inner depth of unusual bifurcation.
The aftermath of Atiku’s presidential nightmare eventually left behind a deep division among competing tribes of Yoruba and Ndigbo. The man has also fell into a political quagmire of nationality identity. I read that the Waziri of Adamawa is from Northern Cameroon. Atiku has been accused of seeking the assistance of a powerful lobby group in the US to declare him the winner of the last presidential election. Treasonable posters have gone up in Abuja, a subtext for psychological war against President Muhammadu Buhari.
It is too sad to watch the political evolution of Abubakar Atiku sliding downwards to a narrow spectrum of bitter, over-ambitious, greedy, do-or-die, adversarial and me-me politics that tainted the political fortunes of PDP for 16 years. When will Atiku, the cry baby, wipe off his tears and bounce off from the politics of bitterness? What is the purpose of actively advocating for the US to help rescue his stolen ‘presidency’? And that’s the way I see it!!!
The conversation continues next week.
After a long vacation, I am back to the noble track of writeosphere.
. tajutijani@hotmail.com.
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