2023:Atiku third contest as PDP candidate

…May signal three cornered fight between North,South West and South East

Analysis by Tunde Abatan

By the time the presidential elections takes place next year,it will be former vice President Atiku Abubakar third trial at clinching the Presidency.

It will be recalled that he first contested on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria,ACN in 2011 but lost to former President Good luck Jonathan who had earlier completed the first term of former President, the late former President Umaru Yar’Adua.

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Atiku who was vice President to former President Olusegun Obasanjo during the laters two terms in office between 1999 and 2007 tenure, also contested the All Progressives Congress,APC primaries with incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari at the primary which took place at Onikan stadium in Lagos in 2015.
Again in 2019-Atiku, easily one of the countrys richest politician, who decamped to the major opposition the People’s Democratic Party,PDP in 2017 and clinched it’s ticket again lost to President Buhari in the 2019 presidential elections.

The emergence of Atiku after Saturdays primaries of the PDP is a confirmation of earlier book makers prediction of his being able to defeat other contestants like Sokoto Governor Aminu Tambuwal and former Senate President Bukola Saraki with the earlier having stepped down for Atiku.

With his emergence,the struggle for the election will now be a straight fight between whoever emerges among the four leading contestants in ruling APC…Vice President Yemi Osinbajo,Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and former Transport Minister,Rotimi Amaechi and Senate President Ahmed Lawan.
It also means that with the candidature of Atiku,the Northern part of the country which had been in power for eight years amid dwidling economic,security and social issues is poised to retain power for another eight years.

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This expectedly is against the spirit of power rotation on which the North and South have been at daggers drawn.

The defection of former governor,Peter Obi to the Labour Party where he intends to pick the ticket will add a new dimension to the race of who occupies Aso rock given the claim by the South East of it’s turn to rule the country since the emergence of the fourth republic in 1999.

If Obi who is relatively popular with mass appeal in the South East emerges as candidate of the Labour party, and either of Osinbajo or Tinubu in APC, it may likely be a three cornered fight reminiscence of the 1979 general election where the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo,Alhaji Shehu Shagari and Dr Nnamdi Azikwe all contested under the platforms of Unity Party of Nigeria,National Party of Nigeria and Nigerian People’s Party,NPP respectively.

The emergence of Atiku on the PDP platform may also likely affect or influence the outcome of the ruling APC presidential primaries next week considering the North South dichotomy which is predicated on power rotation between the North and South.

The emergence of another Northerner on the platform of APC will to a great extent affect the political landscape of the country considering the eight year rule of President Buhari who has been accused of running a lopsided federal government with key positions in all spheres of governance given to the Fulani Hausa north .
This has apparently heightened self determination moves of the Southern parts of the country occasioned by growing insecurity influenced in part by the activities of Fulani herdsmen in all parts of the country amid clamour for Restructuring the polity.

The next one week and thereafter will be interesting for the country considering where the raining major and fringe parties pick their Presidential candidate.