By Ochereome Nnanna
FORMER Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s effort to grab the presidential ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ended in a bitter climax last week Thursday, January 13, 2011, at the Eagle Square, Abuja. Actually, a number of anti-climaxes.

The first of these was that, contrary to the hype that he was going to pull a rabbit from the hat at the last minute and overwhelm President Goodluck Jonathan to clinch the prized ticket of the ruling party, he lost by a landslide.

Apart from his incumbency factors, Jonathan was able to win the soft graces of many Nigerians, including non-delegates of the PDP, by harping on a “new Nigeria” and “transformation” mantras far removed from Atiku’s ethno-sectional consensus approach, which actually did irreparable damage to the sound and indefatigable logic of zoning. Nigerians are in the mood for “new things”.

By leaning on the old conventional wisdom that once the “North” takes a stand on who would rule Nigeria the rest of the country would line up behind its choice, Atiku’s gamble met its waterloo. The North is now part and parcel of Nigeria, rather than its master hated and derided by other Nigerians.

From the voting pattern, the North joined other Nigerians to choose Jonathan rather than Atiku or Sarah Jibril. When the time comes for the North to produce the leader of this country, all Nigerians will also put heads together and pick a suitably qualified Northerner.

The same will happen when Nigerians decide that it is time for an Igbo man (or woman) to provide leadership.

The second anti-climax of the Atiku Abubakar 2011 presidential run was his unpresidential and unstatesmanly conducts, which were often echoed in the utterances of his loyalists such as Mallam Adamu Ciroma, Professor Ango Abdullahi and Lawal Kaita, to mention but a few. Let us admit it publicly: the Atiku campaign organisation, especially its media office, proved itself more competent, intelligent and up to the challenges far ahead of the Jonathan group.

This tells me that if Atiku should find himself on the presidential seat he would set up an effective machinery of government. The endorsement of Atiku by the so-called Nigerian Gay Forum presented a potentially destructive challenge for the Turaki of Adamawa.

Some people were wondering whether these slimy creatures (homosexuals) were actually campaigning for one of their own. The Atiku group effectively distanced him from them with such finesse that the matter ended there and then.

But the aspirant himself was not able to carry himself with equal flair. The man who threatened that those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable (a couple of bomb blasts came from unknown cowards in Abuja to “wash down” the threat) called President Jonathan “incompetent” to his face when he was asked to address the delegates.

He concentrated on venting his bile on his opponent rather than telling the delegates what he stood for and what he would give in exchange for their votes.

On the other hand, Jonathan chose not to address his insults. He concentrated on his agenda if elected. For a man who has run for the presidency of this country four times, Atiku was surprisingly amateurish.

He allowed his anger and bitterness for not being given the zoning of the presidency of the party on a platter of gold to overwhelm his sense of reason. After the result was announced he went and stiffly thrust his hand at Jonathan and left the Eagle Square in a huff.

He should have either openly congratulated his opponent as Dr   Alex Ekwueme did in 1999 or even narrating his reservations if any.

He behaved like somebody who will not have any reason in the future to come before party delegates to seek their mandate.
Atiku’s conduct came to many as a surprise, but I was not one of those. Before now, many Nigerians had come to see in him the seasoned politician, the battle-scarred fighter able to face down any challenge, no matter how daunting.

His ability to lead the campaign to thwart former President Obasanjo’s third term ambition impressed not a few. He followed it up with series of court battles to undo the many plots Obasanjo and his cohorts hatched to stop him from contesting the presidency in 2007.

Three years later, he was able to roll back all efforts to prevent him from returning to the PDP. Not only that, he thrashed the “Maradona” of Nigerian politics, General Ibrahim Babangida, in the Adamu Ciroma-led Northern consensus venture. His campaign group paraded him as an epitome of democracy, which did not wash with me.

The reason was simple. Here was a man who publicly threatened to slap a judge when the latter entered an unfavourable verdict against his crony, the then Governor Boni Haruna of Adamawa State in 2004.

The name of the judge is Hon Justice Kashim Zanna, the President of the Adamawa State Election Petition Tribunal in 2003, and now the Chief Judge of Borno State. When Zanna’s Tribunal decided that Haruna lost the 2003 governorship election to All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP’s) Alhaji Adamu Modibbo, a livid Atiku blazed to down to Yola from Abuja and issued that threat. He said it in public while addressing his supporters. For me, that was when he lost his claims to being a democrat.

Atiku has compromised his political future more than ever before. He cannot afford to dump the PDP a second time, even though his friends in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) are tempting him. With the way he mishandled the presidential primaries, more forces in the party will join Obasanjo in 2015 to jeer: “I dey laugh”, if he enters the race again.