The agenda 2027 African Democratic Congress (ADC) leadership discourse series is closing with its floodlight rested on the inimitable Atiku Abubakar, the generalissimo of Nigerian politics, who, having inspired the formation of the National Opposition Coalition Group (NOCG), and coordinated the process leading to the adoption of the ADC as the unified political party of the coalition, is now oiling his awesome political machinery preparatory for yet another shot at the Nigerian presidency in the 2027 election.
Atiku Abubakar – consummate bridge builder, great unifier of people, and irrepressible defender of democracy:
- Personal Attributes, Social Engagement & Characteristics:
Nearing 79 now, Atiku Abubakar is a colossus who has remained a permanent fixture on Nigeria’s most elevated political stages from the time of his debut in national politics 36 years ago – which merit’s him the ranking of ‘generalissimo’ of Nigerian politics. From beginning life as a herder boy, to rising to be the second in command in the Nigerian Customs Service, and then the vice-president of Nigeria, Atiku’s improbable ‘rags-to-riches’ story qualifies to be cited as a classical ‘Nigerian Dream’ story, something akin to the oft-narrated “American Dream” glory tales.
Born on 25 November 1946 in Jada, in Adamawa state, Northeast Nigeria, his Fulani father, a farmer and itinerant trader, suspicious of western education, raise Atiku, his only child, to be a herder. And as typical of Fulani boys, Atiku herded cattle, until he was ‘found-out’ by officials of the colonial Native Authority, who detained his father until he accepted to have Atiku sent to school. Thus, at age eight, Atiku was enrolled in the Jada Primary School. Thereafter, despite the death of his father three years later while he was just 11 years old, Atiku completed his primary school education, and then, enrolled in the Adamawa provincial school in Yola for his secondary education – graduating in 1965. Then, he got admitted, on a scholarship from the regional government, into the Ahmadu Bello University’s Institute of Administration in 1967, where he graduated with a Diploma in law in1969. Decades later, even after having served for two-terms as the vice president of Nigeria, Atiku, still enamored with learning, enrolled into the Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, and successfully completed and obtained a masters degree in International Relations, in 2021.
After his 1969 graduation from Ahmadu Bello University, Atiku joined the Nigerian Customs Service, and rose to the rank of deputy director, as the second highest position or the next-in-command of the Customs Service was then designated. His time in the Customs Service was hallmarked by a major incident; the famous 56 suit cases controversy of 1984 which involved the Emir of Gwandu, the father of major Jokolo, who was at that time, the ‘Aide the Camp’ (ADC), to the military head of state, major-general Mohammadu Buhari.
The military authorities, to curtail the rising incidences of money laundering, had decreed that all luggages departing or leaving the country’s entry points must be thoroughly searched. However, when the emir and his entourage arrived at the Lagos airport, following his pilgrimage to Mecca, he refused to have his royal luggage of 53 suit cases subjected to custom checks – which made the customs officers on duty to confiscate the suitcases, which were allegedly stuff with foreign currency. This made the VIP emir to reach out to the military leadership of the country, who in turn summoned Atiku Abubakar, who was then head of Customs operations in the Lagos territory, and demanded him to order his men to release the emir’s confiscated luggage. Atiku refused, citing the military government’s own decree. Following his intransigence, the military authority detailed a team of soldiers to storm the Customs post at the airport. There, a standoff ensued. The soldiers overpowered the Customs officers and retrieved the emir’s luggage from their custody. The incident, which led to a national scandal, and which exposed the hypocrisy of the government’s anti-corruption posturing, was blamed on Atiku’s stubborn intransigence by the military rulers, who marked, and subsequently, subjected him to unfavourable treatments. Thus, when the retirement date of the incumbent head of the Customs Service approached, and it became clear to Atiku that the military rulers will not have him promoted to head the service, he opted, in April 1989, after 20 years of service, to voluntarily resign from the customs rather than suffer the humiliation of being willfully snubbed and overlooked.
This stubborn firmness, irrepressible spirit, and courage to stand against the mal-governance of those in authority, will be a trait that has defined Atiku’s political life to this day.
Following his voluntary retirement from the Custom Service, Atiku joined politics at the invitation of the then retire second-in-command and deputy head of the General Obasanjo led military government of 1976-1979, General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua – the man who coordinated the transition program that return the country to democratic governance in 1979 – a man with the keenest sense of discovering political talents. At that time, Yar’Adua was forming a political movement aimed at pressurizing the General Ibrahim Babangida led military junta to return the country to civil democratic governance. The ‘Peoples Front of Nigeria’ (PF), as the movement was known, included people like late president Umaru Yar’Adua, present president Bola Tinubu, present leader of NNPP party, Rabiu Kwankwaso, late Lawal Kaita, Professor Ango Abdullahi, Ambassador Yahaya Kwande etc .The PF soon became the country’s most formidable pro-democracy political movement. Also, shortly after its formation, Atiku Abubakar was elected as the National Vice-Chairman of the movement, becoming the deputy to General Yar’Adua, the movement’s leader.
During the build-up to the third republic, and following the military government’s non-registration of the Peoples Front (PF) to participate in elections, the PF merged with the Social Democratic Party (SDP), which was one of the two government created political parties – the only parties legalized by the military rulers to carry out political activities in the country at that time. Following this, Atiku contested and won the Adamawa state SDP governorship primaries of November 1991, but then, was disqualified by the military government from contesting in the governorship elections proper. His duel sins being his past uncompromising intransigence while in the customs, and for being a protégé of the archenemy of the military rulers, General Shehu Yar’Adua, the man who was relentlessly stampeding the military rulers to cede power and to return the country to democratic rule.
After the last minutes banning of his mentor, General Yar’Adua, from contesting in the then forth-coming 1993 presidential elections by the spiteful military rulers, Yar’Adua and his PF allies in the SDP hurriedly nominated and drafted Atiku Abubakar into the contest, as the replacement to Yar’Adua. Thus, in the 1993 SDP presidential primaries that was held in Jos, Atiku was pitched against Billionaire business man, Moshood Abiola, and Baba Gana Kingibe; the preferred candidate of the military rulers. At end of the first ballot, Abiola garnered 3,617 votes, Kingibe scored 3,255 votes, while Atiku got 2,066 votes. Then, following a deal in which Abiola was to name him as his running mate and vice presidential candidate, Atiku supported Abiola to win the contest in the second round – to the great displeasure of the military government who would later on, annul the June 12 1993 presidential election, and then, aborted the entire program of returning the country to democratic governance.
Thereafter, the PF regrouped and rebranded as the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) – and again, mounted the fierce pressure which forced the General Sani Abacha led military junta to resume the program to return the country to civilian-led democratic governance. For his persistent ultimatums to the Abacha junta, Yar’Adua was arrested, incarcerated, and later, assassinated by a lethal injection in his prison cell. But before his death he named Atiku Abubakar as head of the PDM, and mandated him to lead the movement’s objectives and agitations – a mandate which Atiku has faithfully shouldered.
Aside from the innate irrepressible spirit, and stickler for rules and regulations that characterizes him, his unending zest to organize and coordinate platforms and activities that unify people, irrespective of their ethnicities, religious believes or where they come from, has been the other attribute that defines the Atiku Abubakar persona – an attribute that has earned him the ‘great unifier’ moniker.
This attribute was cultivated because the PDM, and its predecessor, the PF, the political family into which Atiku was born and baptized into, were not only about agitations for democracy. From the very beginning, General Yar’Adua conceived these movements to be platforms for unifying Nigeria and its people – by fighting the endemic tribalism, regionalism and religious bigotry that divides and pitch Nigerians against each other, and which stymies the country’s unity, political stability, and socio-economic progress. The overriding goal was to build bridges across Nigeria’s tribal, regional, and religious divides, hence the motto of the PF and PDM movements was ‘No tribe, No Religion’. Therefore, much different from other movements, which were mostly regional, tribal or religious supremacist agitators, members of the PF and PDM were drawn from across the length and breadth of the country, irrespective of their tribes, regions, and religious affiliations. It was therefore not a surprise that the PDM became the most potent and most extensively spread political movement Nigeria ever saw, so much so that its founding members, irrespective of the different political parties they later moved into have continued to dominate Nigeria’s politics to this day, such that two – Umaru Yar’Adua and Bola Tinubu, have ended up becoming presidents of the country.
Following the sudden death of General Abacha in 1998, and the start of a new program to return the country to civilian rule by his successor, General Abubakar Abdulsalami, the Atiku Abubakar led Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) transformed into a political party; the Peoples Democratic People (PDP). Naturally as the defacto leader of the PDP party, Atiku prepared to contest for the presidency of the country in the then forthcoming 1999 presidential elections.
However, the military rulers, fearing reprisals from the in-coming civilian government for their decades long repressive rule of the country, a rule which was replete with innumerable civic and human rights abuses, were unwilling to have a ‘pure’ civilian as president, opting to have the right to foist their preferred candidate on the PDP – the party they considered to be the country’s most prepared and better organized political party at that time. As Atiku narrated, “The Abdulsalami Abubakar government sent an emissary to inform us that they wanted Olusegun Obasanjo”. Thus the PDP drafted and nominated General Olusegun Obasanjo to be its presidential candidate – following which, he won the 1999 presidential election. However, General Obasanjo, who was the military boss to Atiku’s political mentor, General Shehu Yar’Adua, knew that the support of Atiku, who was the defacto leader of the PDP, was crucial for the success of his government. Thus, he named and selected Atiku to be the vice-president, despite Atiku having been elected as the governor of his native Adamawa state.
Already famed as a very successful and accomplished business man and a master political organizer, Atiku’s brief, and purview, as vice president, was to manage the national economy, and to ensure the social and political stability of the country. He went into these assignments with utmost zeal, bringing into them all the attributes and traits that characterized his persona.
To assist him in managing the national economy, he beamed his searchlight far and wide, found and recruited some of the most brilliant Nigerians from home and abroad into the government; and assigned them portfolios as ministers and head of agencies and departments pertaining to the economy. Thus, the likes of Okonjo Iweala, the present president of the World Trade Organization (WTO), became minister of finance, economic professor and present governor of Anambra state, Charles Soludo, was name the Governor of the Central Bank, liberal reformist, Nasir El-Rufai, was made head of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) to oversea the national privatization program, and the presently outgoing president of the African Development Bank, Femi Adesina, was made the minister of Agriculture, among many others.
To ensure the socio-political stability of the country, Atiku, with the support of president Obasanjo, ran the most inclusive government the country has ever had – which made much of the erstwhile loud cries of exclusion and marginalization, on the basis of tribe, region, and religion, to become muted over the two-term (eight years) tenure of that PDP government.
In the economic sphere, under the leadership of Atiku, some of the landmark achievements made include the set up of the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP), which led to the building of 11 gas-fired thermal power plants, each having an average electricity generating capacity of about 4 X 112.5Mega Watts. The NIPP program work in two ways; it economically utilizes the country’s vast gas resources which were mostly being flared, and it generates electricity to solve Nigeria’s notorious energy deficit. These gas-fired plants have remained the country’s only additional power plants to date.
Atiku, who was also the chairman of the National Council of Privatization, led and managed the successful privatization of the country’s vast collection of poorly managed, and perennially loss making government owned businesses, which included banks, insurance companies, hotels, newspapers, cement, steel, paper mills, oil, petrochemicals, and fertilizer companies.
To effectively resolve Nigeria’s previously horrendous connectivity and telephony shortages, in 2001, the administration successfully introduced and licensed mobile GSM/GPRS telephony in the country, which led to more than 70 million Nigerians having access to telephone lines, compared to the 400,000 telephone lines that the state-owned Nigerian Telecommunication Company Limited (NITEL) could deploy over its 40 or more years of existence.
And to get the country out of the IMF/World Bank induced ‘debt trap’ circle, in which interest payment on military era incurred foreign loans were draining the country of foreign reserves, much needed to finance the country’s balance of trade obligations, in 2005, the Atiku led economic management team set up the Debt Management Office (DMO) to review and restructure Nigeria’s debt, and then successfully negotiated the pay off of $14.48 billion of the country’s external debt, and the cancellation of the remaining $18 billion debt.
Then, to combat Nigeria’s reputation damaging corruption problem, Atiku coordinated the forming of the country’s main anti-corruption agencies, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), and the now famous Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), and he recruited the present National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, to be the EFCC’s pioneer chairman.
Over the eight years of the administration, the Atiku inspired political and economic management system worked to deepen Nigeria’s then young democracy, united its diverse people, and reformed the economy; making it to be more productive, diverse and competitive – such that by the end of the government in 2007, the Nigerian economy was ranked 31st in the world in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which was estimated to be about $500 billion, which made it the second biggest economy in Africa at that time.
Nonetheless, Atiku’s tenure as vice president was not without some controversies and challenges, the major one being the attempt by President Obasanjo, at the twilight of his second term, to amend the constitution to permit him to run for a third term. The ‘third term agenda’, as it was called, became, literally, the straw that broke and ruptured the, before then, very cordial relationship between Obasanjo and his deputy, vice president Atiku Abubakar.
According to Atiku, “Obasanjo first send one of the ministers, Jerry Gana, to request that I support his quest to amend the constitution. I told Gana to tell him that I will only not support it; I will use all my abilities to fight it. Then Obasanjo met me. He informed me that ‘I left power twenty years ago, I left Mubarak in office, I left Mugabe in office, I left Eyadema in office, I left Umar Bongo, and even Paul Biya and I came back and they are still in power; and I just did eight years and you are asking me to go; why?’ And I responded to him by telling him that Nigeria is not Libya, not Egypt, not Cameroun, and not Togo; I said you must leave; even if it means both of us lose out, but you cannot stay.”
Atiku’s principled intransigence in defense of the constitution led to a bitter political standoff which split the PDP and the government. In the course of the battle that ensued, Atiku used his vast network of political allies, and his astute strategic mobilization skills, to defeat the ‘third term agenda’ both in the courts of public opinion, and on the floors of the national Assembly. The deft strategies which Atiku deployed against president Obasanjo and his allies were such that an outflanked, out maneuvered and utterly befuddled Obasanjo, exclaimed to an ally “this man, Atiku, is more than a civilian, he is a civilian-General”.
But Atiku’s victory came at a steep cost, including; an extensive smear campaign launched against him by Obasanjo and his presidency, in which, Atiku was accused – without a shred of evidence, of all shades of ethical infringements, vindictive plots to cripple and destroy businesses linked to him, and a public vow by Obasanjo, to ensure that Atiku will not succeed him as president, declaring that “I may not know who would be president after me, but I know who would not be – Atiku”.
Thus, while Obasanjo was still the president of the country, and with Atiku de-registered and forced out of the PDP following his bitter duel with him, Atiku contested in vain, under the banner of the Action Congress of Nigeria,(ACN) party, in the 2007 presidential contest for a successor president to Obasanjo. It was a futile bid which pitched Atiku directly against an embittered president Obasanjo who ensured that the professor Maurice Iwu led pliant national electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), refused to include Atiku’s name among the official list of candidates registered for the election, citing a puerile claim that Atiku’s name was omitted because he was on a list of persons indicted for corruption by a government panel – a development that questioned Atiku’s eligibility, and derailed his campaign activities. Though Atiku challenged INEC’s position in the courts, it was not until the 16 of April 2007, that his purported disqualification was overturned, with the Supreme Court unanimously ruling that INEC had no powers to disqualify candidates vying for elections. But with the court ruling coming just days before the 21 April date of the presidential election, Atiku and the ACN’s campaign could do little to change the foreclosed outcome of the election, which was won by Obasanjo’s handpicked candidate, Umaru Yar’Adua, of the ruling PDP.
Overtime, Obasanjo who had left the presidency, resigned his membership of the PDP, and retired from active politics, mend fences, and resolved his differences with Atiku, who had returned to the PDP after Obasanjo’s resignation from the party. Thereafter, Atiku reorganized the PDP, and in 2019, Obasanjo publicly endorsed and supported him in the 2019 presidential election which pitched Atiku and the PDP against the then incumbent, General Mohammadu Buhari of the APC.
Again, still trying to wrestle presidential power from the APC, and to return the country to PDP rule, Atiku contested, and very controversially, lost the 2023 presidential election. It was an election in which the utterly corrupt, discredited, and distrusted electoral commission, INEC, under the compromised and partisan leadership of professor Mahmood Yakubu, blatantly flouted its own laws which, prohibited manual accreditation of voters, and which mandated the automatic electronic transmission and display of results via its INEC Results Viewing (IREV) portal. The election, which is widely described as the “worst in Nigeria’s democratic history” was literally, merely ‘awarded’ by INEC to the candidate of the ruling APC party.
All these are among the numerous epic political struggles that has cemented Atiku’s reputation as an irrepressible defender of democratic tenets and a resolute fighter for the rule of law – and to his being described as a great unifier and mobilizer of people fighting for common causes.
While undoubtedly a fierce and formidable political fighter, Atiku is also famed for his friendliness, accommodating spirit, and reconcilable nature. Known for not bearing long grudges, no matter how much he is offended or wrongly treated, he is a great listener who is ever willing to accept enlightened opinions, viewpoints, and ideas. Generally, Atiku’s antecedents show that he is a person who disdains separatist and divisive tendencies, and who stands resolute in defense of the rule of law, constitutionality, and what is right – even against enormous personal loses.
2. Political Vision, Ideological Stance & Leadership Engagement
Politically, Atiku is a centrist politician. And in terms of economic orientation, he tends to lean more towards the mix-economy model of productions and industrial capitalism. This is seen in his flagship businesses which are dominated by tangible productions – Agriculture, manufacturing, energy logistics and schools.
As a consummate bridge-builder, Atiku’s vision, which is shaped by the ethos of the Peoples Front (PF) and Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM), is to see a Nigeria in which the destructive politics entrenched in the country, which is centered on tribalism, regionalism, and religious separatism is defeated – he dreams of a Nigeria in which Nigerian people, irrespective of their differences and diversities, are united under the common cause of securing their futures and building a stable and prosperous country.
This is why Atiku considers the lop-sided and exclusionist APC Muslim-Muslim Presidency which is being run by president Bola Tinubu, and which proliferates, top-to-bottom, with appointees drawn exclusively from his Yoruba tribal group of Nigeria’s southwestern region, and which disdainfully marginalizes the country’s other ethnicities, regions, and religions, to be, not only a dangerous threat to Nigeria’s social cohesion and fragile national unity, but also deems it a gross betrayal of the ethos of the PF and PDM by president Tinubu, himself being a founding member of these movements.
Hence, as ethnic, regional, and religious tempers fray, and begin to boil over, threatening to tear the social fabrics of the country apart, Atiku Abubakar saw the need to invite his allies and other opposition leaders, drawn from across the country, to convene and form the National Opposition Coalition Group (NOCG), to fight the dangerous divisive paths being walked by the Bola Tinubu led irredentist APC government.
As the defacto leader of the opposition coalition, Atiku has led the large body of opposition leaders drawn from the country’s different political parties, to set aside their party affiliations, and to adopt the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the unified party of the opposition coalition, preparatory to democratically challenging the exclusionist and irredentist APC in the 2027 election. The swift rise of the ADC into becoming the country’s main opposition party, and therefore, the most formidable challenger to the APC, within months of its adoption by the Atiku led NOCG, is a testament to Atiku’s unifying reputation, and his credentials as a consummate political organizer and mobilizer.
3. Influence & Networks
Having had a memorable career that spanned 20 years in the Nigerian Customs Service, during which he rose to the second highest career rank of the service, and then, veering into other career paths which are ongoing, 36 years and counting – in high capacity businesses, with high-net worth investments in education, manufacturing, energy logistics, aviation, banking and real-estate; and in high stakes, high intensity national politics that circumferences the Nigerian presidency, Atiku Abubakar is indubitably, one of Nigeria’s most influential person. Such is the depth of his influence, and the breadth of his network, which cuts across all spheres of the country’s social, economic, and political strata, that he has become, literally, an institution in himself.
Thus, Atiku Abubakar is not just influential, he is a bonafide member of the exclusive club of Nigeria’s super powerful elite which comprise of four or five persons who are said to constitute what is known as Nigeria’s ‘concentric circle of power’ – an exclusive circle of the select few who must be consulted and listened to in deciding Nigeria’s most critical national issues.
4. Advocacy & Social Contributions
As an accomplished political organizer and party builder, Atiku’s foremost interest is the building of platforms and governments that work to unite the country and its people. Thus, he is a consistent advocate for the formation and building of strong, stable, and well organized platforms and systems that would drive and guide the country and its people to social and economic growth, progress, and prosperity.
Atiku has also gained reputation as a consistent advocate for the practice of ‘true federalism’, in contrast to the present system in which responsibilities and resources are over centralized and concentrated in the hands of the federal government – which marginalizes and depowers the states and regions of the country. Atiku is known to have traversed the country and delivered speeches advocating for the need to restructure the country; by transferring most of the responsibilities, which are presently domiciled with the federal government, such as education, healthcare, housing, agriculture, and policing, to the states. During one such event where he was conferred with the ‘Hero of Democracy Award’, Atiku opined that “Political decentralization will help to deepen and strengthen our democracy as it will encourage more accountability. Citizens are more likely to demand accountability when governments spend their tax money rather than rent collected from an impersonal source”, adding that “True Federalism will encourage states to compete, to attract investments and skilled workers rather than merely waiting for monthly revenue allocation from Abuja”
Atiku’s advocacy for democracy, national unity, respect for laws and regulations, true federalism and decentralization of political power aligns his views with that of those who believe that the path to building a stable and prosperous Nigeria lies in building institutions that unite the country, and in respecting constitutional and statutory rules and regulations.
5. Business & Economic Interests
Additional to being a formidable political colossus, Atiku is also among the country’s most accomplished businessmen, so much so, that he is ranked among Nigeria’s largest private employers of labour outside of the government.
His first start in business was in real estate, beginning in 1974, when he applied for and received a loan of 31,000 Naira which he used to build his first house-for-rent in Yola. He was then able, from the proceeds of the rent, to purchase another plot and built a second house. He continued this way, going on to building a sizeable portfolio of property in Yola, the Adamawa state capital. Thereafter, he ventured into trading, buying and selling truckloads of rice, flour and sugar. He has since then gone on to build a vast business empire that stretches across Africa and Europe, and which parades investments in aviation, hospitality, banking, energy logistics, manufacturing and education.
It is well known that Atiku, in partnership with the late General Shehu Yar’Adua and Moshood Abiola, founded Habib Bank Nigeria, which rebranded as BankPHB, and also, Atiku is claimed to the major partner-investor in Taj Bank Nigeria, a bank which has gained reputation for prioritizing flexible lending to women involved in agriculture and small scale enterprises.
However, Atiku’s better known businesses, which qualify as his flagship investments, are centered on education, ports development, energy logistics, and manufacturing.
In education, he founded and runs the APTI chain of schools, which range from elementary, secondary, to the flagship American University of Nigeria (AUN), located in Yola – a university which has received the commendations of the global internet giant, Google Corporation, who described AUN as Africa’s most IT intensive university.
In energy logistics, Atiku alongside his Italian-Nigerian partner, Gabriel Volpi, founded Integrated Energy and Logistics Company (INTELS), which is Nigeria’s dominant oil and gas logistics and ports development company, and which has since expanded its activities to other African and European countries, with operations in Angola, South-Africa, Namibia, South-Sudan, Italy and in other places.
In manufacturing, Atiku owns the Adama Beverages Company, the makers of the Faro brand of fruit drinks and table water. Also, Atiku, alongside his Portuguese partners, is the founder of Rico-Gado Nigeria, who operates two major factories, a 20 tonnes per hour plant in Yola, Adamawa state, and a 50 tonnes per hour factory in Abuja. Rico Gado, who produce high quality feeds for a wide range of livestock, including poultry, cattle, goats, and horses, is probably Nigeria’s largest manufacturer of animal feeds.
While the fruit drinks production operations of Adama Beverages, which by providing the facility for the processing of agricultural fruits, works to reduce the annual rotting and wastage of fruits such as oranges, mangoes, and pineapples, which constitute major loses for tree-crop farmers, the feeds manufacturing operations of Rico Gado work to stem the escalating farmer-herder clashes, a serious national security problem which is caused by the culture of free-range, open grazing of animals in search for food. But most importantly, by sourcing all their raw materials locally, Atiku’s Adama Beverages Company and Rico Gado Ltd, work to ensure that the bulk of the value added stayed with Nigerian farmers who grow the grains, seeds, and fruits – in this way, boosting national agriculture.
By concentrating his flagship businesses in the real sector of the economy; productions and manufacturing, Atiku differentiates himself as an industrial-capitalist – unlike Nigeria’s other coterie of finance-capitalist, who concentrate their investments in the non-productive sectors of the economy, such as trading, banking, stock broking, and real estate developments – short-term rentier businesses that generate quick profits, but provide minimal employment opportunities for Nigeria’s growing population of job seekers who are mostly youths.
6. Personal & Social Life
Muslim by faith and practice, Atiku Abubakar is married to four wives – and as reflective of his detribalized nature and broad worldview persona, his wives come from the four major tribes and regions of Nigeria. The first wife Titilayo, who he married in 1971, and with whom he has four children, is Yoruba from southwest Nigeria. The second, Ladi, who he married in 1979, and with whom he has six children, is a Hausa from Northwestern Nigeria. The third, and mother of seven of his children, Princess Rukaiyatu, is a Fulani from northeast Nigeria. While the fourth, (though recently divorced) wife, who he married in 1986, and with whom he has three children, Jennifer, is an Ibo from the southeast. Thus, Atiku’s rather large household, which is representative of the country’s four largest tribes and regions, is in some ways, a mini-Nigeria in itself
Widely travelled, Atiku is a highly cosmopolitan and detribalized person who has a broad and encompassing modern view of the world. Socially, he plays host, and is also a regular guest, at high level events, at home and abroad, involving national and global leaders. While he occasionally plays tennis and squash, he is well known to be an age-long fan of the English premier league football club, Arsenal (a.k.a the ‘gunners’), often sharing his euphoric delights at their triumphs, and his traumatic anguish at their failures – which are becoming rather often in recent years, in his social media handles.
7. Strategic Goals & Future Directions
Atiku’s strategic goal is to lead, organize, and build Nigeria into a united, stable and prosperous country – a country whose people are able to transform their rich and deep diversity from being instruments of divisive hate, into the qualities that could be aggregated, harmonized, and mobilized to drive the country to socio-economic progress, prosperity, and greatness. He strongly believes that any hope for Nigeria’s socio-economic progress will remain an unattainable mirage in a polity rife with tribal, regional, and religious suspicions, antagonism, and hate.
Thus, his convening and leading the National Opposition Coalition Group (NOCG) to adopt the African Democratic Congress (ADC) as the coalition’s common party for the 2027 elections, is aimed at achieving the goals of building a united Nigeria by democratically defeating the ruling irredentist APC, and their dangerous politics of tribal, regional, and religious suprematism, which is edging the country into looming social conflagrations.
As the convener and the defacto leader of the NOCG, and their coalition ADC party, Atiku’s immediate goal is to organize, rally, and lead the ADC to victory in the 2027 election.
8. Prognosis and Final Words
Atiku is not just a preeminent political leader; he is factually one of the most powerful prime movers of Nigeria’s national politics. Nicknamed ‘the great unifier’, he has devoted his life in politics towards building bridges of friendship and cooperation across Nigeria’s cultural, regional, and religious diversities and divides. As a strong advocate for the structural reformation of the Nigerian state to engender inclusion, regional development, and national productivity, his approach is pragmatic, cooperative, and collaborative – and is leveraged on his leadership acumen, unifying attributes, and his vast network of allies and supporters from across the country.
His detribalize nature, and his ability to accept and embrace people irrespective of their ethnicity, their religion, or where they come from, are the attributes and personality traits that earn him the ‘great unifier’ moniker.
Given that the goal of uniting Nigeria, and getting Nigerians to overcome the religious, tribal, and regional differences that continue to divide them, and which stymies national progress, remains unattained, Atiku Abubakar harbors the feeling that Nigeria remains an ‘unfinished bridge’ project – one which must be completed. The prognosis on Atiku therefore is that he will keep working on the ‘Nigerian Project’ – until he gets it to its logical conclusion.
Having achieved almost everything in politics, bar the presidency, it is taken for a fact that Atiku will be on the ballot, leading the ADC, in the democratic contest for the Nigerian presidency in the 2027 election.
In conclusion, Atiku’s profile is one of irrepressible determination, reformative, inclusive and compassionate leadership. With Nigeria’s socio-economic progress continuing to be bogged down by ethnocidal and exclusionist mal-governance, Atiku presents the electorate with a profile which eminently qualifies him as the exact leader Nigeria needs to defeat the entrenched forces driving these divisions – and which must be decisively defeated, to reshape Nigeria’s post 2027 polity.
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