By Ike Abonyi
“Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that’s no reason not to give it.” – Agatha Christie
Having been a spokesman for two previous national chairmen of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, for nearly five years, this columnist is versed in the challenges of speaking for public officers.
Sometimes you find yourself facing the public in what you know is going to have a backlash but you still have to do your job. In the past, spokespersons were usually trained journalists and PR experts who were trained for the purpose. This has changed.
Spokespersons are anybody from any profession with a good voice and an attack dog mentality. Well-equipped to respond to journalists and television anchor’s interviews, often aggressively. It does not matter whether the truth is being told or lies are being fabricated to achieve a purpose.
Spokespersons are supposed to espouse and clarify their principals’ views. Today, they have become shields to their masters, covering them from being heard directly, more or less covering their deficiencies. That was why Bola Tinubu walked his way into the presidency without granting any public or news media interviews. But he lined up a barrage of attack dogs to imagine and speak for him. What a presidency!
Daniel Bwala, a lawyer, was a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, until 2022 when he left the party, protesting the detestable Muslim-Muslim ticket. He instantly joined the PDP and picked the spokesman job for the former Vice President and presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2023 polls.
He did his job well, marching the loquacious and yakking team of attack dogs lined up by the APC, also led by two lawyers, the current Minister of Aviation, Festus Kayamo, SAN, and Femi Fani-Kayode.
As Atiku lost or was allocated fewer votes in the grab-and-run election of 2023, Bwala became stranded. But he was not idle as a lawyer and politician.
The thing about a spokesman job is that they hardly lose their job so long as the principal lives, unless they roll to the opposing camp like Fani-Kayode to contradict yourself shamelessly. An event last week showed Bwala already has a job for the next four years. That he started already.
Speaking on the ambition of his principal for 2027 in a TV interview last week, Bwala said, “Sure, he will run. He has the capacity. He has the wisdom He knows he has the energy. And he is the President we never had. If any politician understands the private sector very well It is Atiku Abubakar, and our economy can only come alive if there is a private sector-led economy. He is the President the country is missing because of his experience and capacity.” He meant that Atiku still wants to be in the presidential struggle for the seventh time!
Atiku has a yet-to-be-broken record as the man with the most appearances in presidential elections in Nigeria. Six times, in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023. In all, he was rejected by the people. He claims the ballot was rigged.
Bwala’s statement has generated a lot of reactions. My reaction as contained in the following is coming from one who was an ardent admirer of Atiku Abubakar.
Nine years ago on Atiku Abubakar’s 68th birthday, we published a tribute entitled, “Atiku: The Man Who Can Still be President.” In it, we concluded, “In today’s Nigeria where a president concentrates federal appointments in one section and religion and claims he gives those he can trust, the likes of Atiku would continue to be relevant because around this Fulani man’s business and political lives are divers Nigerians whose main attraction is their competence and hard work. The calmness of Atiku even in his quest for this elusive political position makes one believe that it may not yet be over for this politician. If leadership is defined by some as ‘the ability to hide your panic from others so as not to discourage them, then Atiku may have been a great politician’.”
We also wrote in October 2023, “When the story of this political dispensation from 1999 to 2023 is compiled, the former Vice President will be on a positive record for the enrichment of the political jurisprudence through his various litigations.”
The foregoing remarks suggest admiration for Atiku Abubakar but we do not support him running for president for the seventh time [at age 80]. If Bwala’s statement is flying a kite, let it remain as kite flying. He should know that the popular reaction the kite attracted is that Atiku ought to retire into an elder statesmanship role. That is where he is needed at this moment.
Yes, after Bola Tinubu broke the Guinness Book of Records, becoming the president of a country without any verifiable bio-data and without winning an election, anything can happen. Anybody can still be Nigerian president after it was lowered to an irreducible standard for such an exalted position. But that should not be our wish for a new Nigeria that is possible.
If Atiku, patriotic as usual, posed a challenge on April 12, 2022, saying, “If Nyesom Wike [and] Ayo Fayose agree that we zoned the PDP presidential ticket to the SouthEast, I will withdraw from the race.” Even though many saw the challenge then as a gimmick, that he did not get a response helped to maintain his pride.
In throwing the challenge, he was reacting to the criticism that the presidency, having been zoned to the South after eight years of Muhammadu Buhari, it was inconceivable that power should remain in the North and with the same Fulani. South East was largely favoured being the only zone in the South that has not occupied the presidency since this dispensation began in 1999.
Nothing on the ground to erase this sentiment in 2027 for the same Atiku Abubakar, instead of working for his party to present somebody from the Southeast, is again offering himself. In addition to the zoning which is still not in his favour, by 2027 Atiku will be officially 81, having been born in 1946.
He started his presidential aspiration in 1993 at 47. Therefore,in 34 years, he eyed the presidency and was rejected six times and nothing dramatic has happened to warrant a change in voting patterns. He should know that the vote allocators that put him in the second position in 2023 did that to match their game plan because they know who won the election. They are still in the driver’s seat, even promising him a bigger defeat.
Even Abraham Lincoln who is known to have lost many polls before winning, had a higher profile than other candidates he defeated in 1860. Can Abubakar say honestly that he has a higher profile today than he had in the previous elections he lost? Certainly not. Where in today’s political segmentation can he boost winning? South-South and South East, his natural habitat, have disappeared in a new political regeneration caused by the phenomenal Peter Obi. The Obi that was his for utilising but lost him by looking away as charlatans were monetised to humble him in Anambra State. Nothing on the ground has shown that Atiku Abubakar’s consistent rejection in the North has changed or will ever change. It can even get worse with his NorthEast brother, the incumbent Vice President Kashim Shetimma filling all political holes, including befriending and hiring [especially Christian] clerics to maintain relevance in the region.
There was a time when Atiku was the most versatile politician In Nigeria. His network was overwhelming, his political ingenuity was glaring. Ditto his capacity and energy. The same cannot be said of him today. His indiscretions in handling the PDP he co-founded, leaving it in anger to help APC come to power, and his looking away when Prince Uche Secondus was needlessly hounded out of office are all trying to haunt him now. That’s because he is not even sure of the PDP platform in 2027. In 2022, he would have been disgraced by the then Rivers state Governor Wike but for Aminu Tambuwal’s last minute betrayal. Moreover, more than ever before, the myriad of problems in Nigeria today require more than energy and capacity which age is denying Atiku Abubakar.
We can guess correctly that if Atiku Abubakar summons his over 20 children and proposes a seventh shot at the presidency, he may not get a yes vote. Most of his children would love their father to leave the stage as an elder statesman who helped his party regain power rather than a perpetual election loser.
If Atiku Abubakar were my father or uncle I would be explicit in telling him to rest from these seasonal elections and enjoy his old age as a highly respected elder statesman. If Atiku consults widely, surely, he would get a rational answer. But if he remains in his cocoon, among those who make money every four years as cronies, they will urge him to carry on. After all, they are mostly driven by mere lucre and most of them are currently jobless..
America’s basketball icon, John Collins, says, “To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.” At 77 years, Atiku Abubakar has enough political experience to distance himself from those who use him, who gain from him in his difficult times, who left him in difficult times, and those who put him in difficult situations for their selfish interests. No wise man, no matter how well built, attempts a somersault or acrobatic dance at the ripe age of 80. Even in sports, people are advised to take their required daily exercise easily to avoid harmful strains. So it is even in politics. A word is enough for the wise.
*Abonyi, a consummate journalist wrote in from Abuja and first published in New Telegraph
