Basil Okoh
THIS ESSAY WAS WRITTEN IN 2018, BEFORE THE PDP PRIMARIES IN PORT HARCOURT FOR THE 2019 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.
WHY ATIKU ABUBAKAR CANNOT
BE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA
Atiku Abubakar appears now to be the front-runner of the crowded field for the PDP Presidential ticket in the 2019 Presidential election. The bigwigs of the PDP pretend not to be aware of the sordid image of Atiku in the international community and the attendant catastrophe this portends for the party and the country in the main Presidential election.
Since 1989, Atiku has crisscrossed political parties in the unprincipled pursuit of the presidency of Nigeria. Below are the reasons why Atiku Abubakar should not be president of the republic.
Atiku Abubakar is Fulani. So is the present President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari. The matter of geopolitical and ethnic rotation of the Presidency is settled in Nigeria. Atiku Abubakar cannot succeed Muhammadu Buhari, another Fulani and current president by the rules of that socio-political contract which was introduced into the polity to engender patriotism and a sense of belonging to all.
Fulani should not be permitted to hand the Presidency over to another Fulani in a multi-ethnic Nigeria.
Even with the Presidency zoned to the North for another tenure, worthy persons of other ethnic groups should have their chance, there are no less than 180 indigenous Nigerian ethnic groups in the North to chose a worthy president from.
The Fulani are just one among many other ethnic groups in Northern Nigeria. Jukun, Berom, Tiv, Nupe, Dass, Hausa, Gwari, Kataf, Igala, Igbira, Mumuye and Northern Yoruba are some of the others. Fulani should not succeed Fulani in a plural and multi-ethnic Nigeria.
Atiku Abubakar has played Nigeria and harvested from unfair and pre-bended advantages all through his life. These unearned advantages has given him an attitude and an overlarge sense of entitlement to the benefits of being Nigerian without the corresponding sense of sacrifice for and on behalf of Nigeria.
Atiku Abubakar has no sense of obligation to make personal sacrifices to protect Nigeria from foreign economic marauders but instead, has joined with them to pillage his country of its wealth and resources repeatedly, leaving a large swath of the nation desolate and underdeveloped. The pillaging of the ports of the Midwest and Eastern Nigeri are living examples.
To advance the fortunes of Nigeria is the business of patriots and Atiku is not one. Atiku has a deep and unrelenting passion since 1989 to be president without the obligatory need to tell Nigerians what he wants to do while being President. Atiku wants to be President not because he wants to serve but because he wants to be served, not because his citizenship qualifies him to the office, but because his Fulani heritage entitles him to rule Nigeria.
Atiku is unable to understand the challenges of development facing Nigeria because he has preyed on Nigeria all his life and enjoyed all the advantages on offer without ever being obliged to make sacrifices even as proof of his patriotism.
Atiku has never laboured for Nigeria but for himself and has thrived from the privileges of being Fulani and further from the endemic corruption in the Customs Department where he rose undeservedly through the entrenched quota system. He was continually promoted above his peers and given posts above his ranks. He was the Customs Director of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport for Thirteen years, unmoved even in the turbulence of the times.
Atiku Abubakar is the major owner of Intels Nigeria, a rapacious company that has poached the wealth of the Niger Delta and held up the development of its ports for thirty years. Intels Nigeria undertook a dubious contract with the Nigeria Ports Authority and the Federal Government to collect revenue from ships and port users while providing management for the Midwestern and Eastern ports.
For thirty years Intels Nigeria collected port charges and shipping revenue in U.S. dollars and did not pay to Government accounts. Intels, owned by Atiku Abubakar collected Government revenue in dollars and failed for thirty long years to pay into Government accounts. Repeat, Intels was collecting Government dollars and converting to its own use.
Intels held the ports down, occupied most of their space for its own use as Oil and Gas Service Company, monopolised the use of ports facilities, collected revenue from shipping and other services and generally asphyxiated the ports of traffic and development while stealing all the revenue derived therefrom.
For thirty long years Nigerians and foreigners alike were paying Atiku and his friends for the use of Nigerian Government owned ports.
This is the reason why the Lagos ports are choked full and the Eastern ports are empty of ships and the most basic port activities. Atiku Abubakar and Intels are the instigators and biggest beneficiary of the willful underdevelopment of the Seaports of the South-South.
Atiku Abubakar was named in the Siemens and Haliburton Corruption scandals and to this day he has not been able to clear his name or visit the United States while his named accomplice has been serving jail time in the U.S. His name remains mired in dirt in international circles.
That, my friends, is the story of the man who wants to be president of Nigeria. The nation will become the butt of jokes in the international community for fielding a suspected felon for the office of president.
Atiku Abubakar is perhaps the most irreverent Northerner with a sense of ownership of and entitlement to the Presidency of Nigeria. He has been unrelentingly seeking for the Nigerian Presidency since 1989, thirty years to the next presidential election. He was never satisfied to be Vice-President under Olu Obasanjo and sought at every turn to undermine and remove him as President.
His ascendancy to the Presidency forebodes a regime far worse than Muhammadu Buhari, another tyrant Fulani.
Atiku Abubakar is Adamawa Fulani which territory extends to the Northern Camerouns and the Northern fringes of the Central Africa Republic. This area is the operational hotbed and muster ground of Fulani revolutionary and violent movements. It is also the route through which weapons are trafficked into Nigeria to arm Fulani bandits marauding across Nigeria.
The arrowhead of this Fulani revanchism is Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN, otherwise called Miyetti Allah. Miyetti Allah is a Fulani inspired death dealing Association that has unleashed mayhem on the rest of the ethnic groups in the North and South of Nigeria.
Atiku Abubakar has warned Nigerians to desist from using the term “killer Fulani herdsmen” because that amounts to “tribal profiling” of the entire Fulani. This however is against the evidence of the menacing threats of Miyetti Allah and the reports of Fulani mass murders across Nigeria.
Paul Unongo, erstwhile President of the Northern Elders Forum has accused Atiku Abubakar of being the chief donor to the herdsmen project through Miyetti Allah. Paul Unongo also alleged that Atiku Abubakar is the biggest owner of cattle in Nigeria and so is an integral sponsor and member of Mietti Allah.
As fellow Fulani, Atiku Abubakar is complicit in working with the Buhari’s Government to implement the Fulani agenda of settling herdsmen in Government designated “colonies” on ethnic community lands across Nigeria. The Fulani resettlement program in Nigeria is a planned project of the Fulani race across Africa. The arrowhead of its implementation falls on any Fulani head of Government in Nigeria.
It is the expectation of the Fulani that a future President Atiku Abubakar or any other Fulani President of Nigeria will continue in the violent promotion of the Fulani Colony project and the enthronement of Fulani hegemony across Nigeria.
Buhari’s failed implementation does not therefore end the threat of Fulani Colonies in Nigeria or the menace of rampaging Fulani violence on native populations. Atiku’s ascendance to the Presidency will not bring any abatement to Fulani aggression across Nigeria.
On Atiku Abubakars indictment by the U.S. Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations chaired by Senator Carl Levin, the Sub-Committee detailed the Wire Transfer of US$40 million to the account of Jennifer Douglas, a US citizen and fourth wife of Atiku Abubakar.
“The report detailed how Atiku Abubakar while still the Vice-President of Nigeria between 2000 and 2008 used off-shore companies to siphon millions of dollars to his fourth wife in the United States, Jennifer Douglas”. “In 2004, the then President George W. Bush barred Atiku and other corrupt politically exposed persons from being issued a visa to the United States”.
The report “also included revelations about Siemens bribe paid into one of the accounts and it possibly provided the basis for Atiku being barred from entering the United States.
If in the impending Presidential Primaries, PDP is foolhardy once again and elects Atiku Atiku Abubakar as its Presidential candidate, it will have confirmed the accusations of its vociferous critics that it is an irredeemable gathering of corrupt politicians and also will signpost its loss of the Presidency for the next generation.
@basilokoh.
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