By Edwin E. Uhara
\nImmediately I heard that Nigeria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku
\nAbubakar has gone back to eat the food from the same pot he had rejected,
\nmy first reaction was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is politics, where there is no permanent
\nenemy and friend, but, what is constantly permanent is interest\u00e2\u20ac! If not
\npolitics of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153permanent interest\u00e2\u20ac, how can one explain the unfathomable
\nrationality behind the decision by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar to go back to
\nSenator Bola Ahmed Tinubu-controlled All Progressives Congress (APC),
\nlooking at what the later did to him during and after the 2007
\nPresidential Election, when he took political refuge in the tent of the
\ndefunct Action Congress (AC), while running away from a persecuting boss
\nin the PDP!<\/p>\n
Honestly speaking, it was Alhaji Atiku that made the then AC a national
\nparty when he moved his remaining political associates in all the
\npolitical parties including the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), All
\nNigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) where
\nSenator Bola Tinubu, then Governor of Lagos State was the only AD
\nGovernor that survived former President Olusengun Obasanjo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clampdown
\non the party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dominance in\u00a0 the South West Geo-Political Zone in the
\n2003 General Elections! Some commentators were of the view that, Chief
\nObasanjo decided to clampdown on the dominance of AD in the South West
\nregion, because he wanted to prove a point to his political benefactors
\nwho accused him of outright rejection by his people in the 1999 General
\nElections, but, only to ride on their back to power in the said election
\nyear. So, based on that reality coupled with the atmosphere of
\nuncertainties hanging over the their political future in
\nthe 2007 General Elections, there was a compelling need for Tinubu, being
\nthe remaining AD Governor and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar cum the retinue of
\nhis supporters in PDP who were denied registration during the 2006 PDP
\nmembership revalidation and registration exercise to find a new political
\nhome! At the beginning, their new political party was named the Advanced
\nCongress of Democrats (ACD)! But, when the factions of the various
\npolitical parties in the country joined the alliance, the name of the
\nparty changed to Action Congress (AC).<\/p>\n
Even when the formation of AC was greatly influenced by Alhaji Atiku
\nAbubakar, it was the same Atiku that popularized the party across the
\nlengths and breaths of the country. In fact, I remember in 2007 when I was
\ncontacted by the party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s governorship candidate in Enugu State, Chief
\nDubem Onyia to mobilize youths and students of tertiary institutions in
\nEnugu State to Akanu Ibiam International Airport Enugu, so as to welcome
\nAtiku Abubakar who was coming to the state for his Presidential Campaign!
\nAt the campaign rally which took place at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium
\nEnugu, Senator Tinubu was never among those on Atiku\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s campaign train,
\nrather, it was Atiku and his running mate, Senator Ben Obi, former PDP
\nNational Chairman, Chief Audu Ogbeh, former Minister of Foreign Affairs,
\nChief Tom Ikimi among other notable politicians that graced the Enugu
\nrally and the subsequent ones I personally monitored during the 2007
\nPresidential Election. Why some of us
\nsupported Atiku then, was because we felt that, he was unjustly
\npersecuted by his boss! But, since he has failed to understand, that,
\nthere is a time for everything under the sun and have decided to go
\nagainst this unchanging law of nature, which is binding on every
\ncreation, and have also decided to challenge the Biblical \u00e2\u20ac\u0153David of our
\ntime\u00e2\u20ac, which is President Good Luck Ebele Jonathan, some of us are
\nbeginning to question the rationale behind his unflinching avarice for
\npower or in the words of Simon Kolawole of Cable Newspaper, his
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6Eternal Obsession with Aso Rock\u00e2\u20ac.<\/p>\n
To cut the whole story short, some of us are aware of what transpired
\nbetween Atiku and Tinubu during the 2007 Presidential Election; and how
\nAtiku became the lame duck of the Action Congress (AC) after the General
\nElections, just because he could not install an AC governor in his home
\nstate of Adamawa and the then outgoing governor of Lagos State Senator
\nBola Ahmed Tinubu was able to install his then Chief of Staff, Babatunde
\nRaji Fashola as the governor of Lagos State.\u00a0 Tinubu and his loyalists
\nincluding Alhaji Lai Mohammed who once described Alhaji Atiku as the
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bulwark of Nigerian Democracy\u00e2\u20ac decided to sideline him in the party
\nwhere nobody heard anything from him until he tendered his resignation
\nletter and joined the ruling PDP. So, because of Atiku\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inexplicable
\nquest for power, he decided to return to his former party, the ruling
\nPeople\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Democratic Party (PDP) where his political wings were clipped
\nby President Good Luck Ebele Jonathan
\nat the party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s primary. (This Jonathan dey toughooo)! Also, because of
\nthe intimidating mass appeal President Good Luck Jonathan still enjoys in
\nthe PDP and in Nigeria at large, Atiku decided to c<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Edwin E. Uhara Immediately I heard that Nigeria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has gone back to eat the food from the same pot he had rejected, my…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19616,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n