Perceptions 2023: Atiku Abubakar

Femi Akintunde-Johnson

What more can we say about this man? He has been struggling to rule this nation as far back as 1992 when he was compelled by forces led his mentor, late Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, to step down for MKO Abiola to hoist the presidential flag of the defunct SDP in the ill-fated 12 June, 1993 elections.

  Atiku Abubakar has tried unsuccessfully, on many occasions, in different political parties, to get elected as the leading man, in spite of his famed prodigious connections and stupendous wealth. The closest he came to the “jackpot” was as the running mate to former military head of state, Olusegun Obasanjo, who won in 1999 after his release from the Sani Abacha gulag, on the platform of the PDP. He somehow managed to hang on as vice to Obasanjo for about eight years of two terms.

  However, the locus (or shall we say the Sword of Damocles) that will subsequently besmirch his ambition and prospect was cemented during his first tenure as the VP (1999-2003). He became so centrally powerful, and astute organisationally, that his political moves nearly checkmated the second term ambition of his boss.

  The fractious relationship that ensued between 2003 and 2007, and the resultant casualties, have been codified in Obasanjo’s book, My Watch, rather unflatteringly. The volume of expletives and unprintable words lavished on Abubakar in the book – and at several public fora thereafter – has forever framed in the minds of discerning Nigerians the malignant typecast that Abubakar represents. Unfortunately, those damaging revelations have consigned Abubakar and his caravan of hopeful adventurers to a Sisyphean perambulation, of tragic proportions. You will remember the Grecian mythical strongman who was cursed by the gods to perpetually roll a huge rock up and down a hill…ad infinitum.

  As a corollary of the rivers of bad blood, the incendiary statements, and self-indicting circumstances and scenarios – both in private and public – have assured many Nigerians that despite the admirable tenacity and audacity of Abubakar to rev his presidential campaign machinery every election circle – in the past 22 years of this Fourth Republic – the Adamawa professional politician would continually suffer electoral defeats in urban Nigeria, again and again…until age, reality or Providence would eventually convince him to find relevance on retirement within the confines of his mansions and millions. 

PERCEPTIONS 2023: PETER OBI – Part 2

  Long after the brouhaha of the 2019 elections, there emerged the most damning disclosures with potential to undermine the rising profile of Obi as an acceptable entity across the board. An exhaustive investigative report, culled from the ‘Panama Papers’ leaks, by Premium Times in October 2021, exposed Obi’s offshore deals that supposedly contravened a number of Nigerian extant laws, and provisions of the constitution. 

  This is how the online newspaper framed the accusations: “Mr Obi is one of the individuals whose hidden business activities was (sic) thrown open by the project. Indeed, he has a number of secret business dealings and relationships that he has for years kept to his chest. These are businesses he clandestinely set up and operated overseas, including in notorious tax and secrecy havens in ways that breached Nigerian laws…

  “The former governor admitted that he did not declare these companies and the funds and properties they hold in his asset declaration filings with the Code of Conduct Bureau…

  “He said he was unaware that the law expected him to declare assets or companies he jointly owns with his family members or anyone else…

  “However, our investigation, based on records obtained from the UK Companies House shows that Mr Obi continued to be a director of Next International (UK) Limited for 14 months after becoming the governor of Anambra State, thereby breaking Nigeria’s law. The politician resigned from the company on May 16, 2008, 14 months after he assumed duties as Anambra governor. He took office on March 17, 2006…

  “Mr Obi did not dispute the records Premium Times cited but he claimed he “resigned immediately” by handing his wife his resignation letter. He suggested that his company might have failed to effect the changes on time or the UK Companies House did not immediately document his exit. But the UK Companies registry said Mr Obi indeed resigned on May 16, 2008, and that it received his notice of resignation for electronic filing on June 16, 2008.

  “Nigerian public officers are required to declare “immediately after taking office and thereafter all” their properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his (or her) unmarried children under the age of eighteen years…” Among other weighty allegations, with somewhat feeble defence reportedly from Obi’s camp.

  Obi was not significantly disturbed, if his rebuttal in the media, on 7 October, 2021, is taken into context. He said: “On the allegation that I violated the Nigerian Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, as well as Sections of the 5th Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), by not declaring any alleged assets in companies registered outside the Nigerian Federation, I think that the authors displayed ignorance on matters of Trust and International Investment Practices.

  “I did not in any respect whatsoever violate any law before, during and after my stewardship as the governor of Anambra.

  “In all matters relating to my investments and declaration of my personal assets, wherever they may be found, I proceeded, pursuant to professional opinions and advice of investment experts both locally and internationally.”

  Well, it may be worthwhile to note that Obi was not accused of the common disease amongst his contemporaries: fleecing their states’ coffers and irresponsible mismanagement of state resources; It is nonetheless disturbing that he didn’t see the no declaration of “all his assets”, half-owned or fully owned, as a big deal, and thus indicative of the usual compulsive Nigerian political practice of subterfuge and dodgy ambivalence in pursuits of self-driven agenda and populist manifestos.

  Our advice is simple: If Obi is serious about offering himself in service to Nigeria, he should mount a more serious defence against the damaging allegations in the Panama Papers as published extensively in the Nigerian media…before uncomfortable tales become an enduring stigma.