‘I don’t want to be part of Kachalla’s rigging machine,’ Babachir Lawal ADC exit statement

I am exiting the ADC because its just-concluded primaries were, at all levels, massively rigged in favour of Kachalla Abubakar Atiku. I sense a conspiracy of silence, of which I want no part. Most members of the party are behaving as if this is the normal thing to do. Results were just written or rewritten to favour him and his coven. Even where they allowed some semblance of an election to hold, the winners were simply replaced with members of his syndicate. In the real sense, it was a disgraceful charade.

I am doing so because I do not intend to be part of Kachalla Atiku’s rigging machine in the 2027 general elections, and I cannot avoid doing so if I remain in the party. The man and his cabal are irredentist Fulani and religious hegemonists. For me, working for Kachalla Atiku means giving Tinubu an automatic ticket to a second term, which gives me nightmares. I believe Tinubu might, comparatively speaking, end up a better Nigerian president than Kachalla Atiku could ever be (as bad as Tinubu currently is and possibly could ever be). The choice in 2027, it seems, will be a Morton’s fork.

I did not join the ADC to make Nigeria progressively worse, so my beliefs and conscience will not allow me to partner with the evil that Atiku and his people represent. For, with close to 25 adult children, six wives (past and present, some offshore) and a heavily shrunk, decapitated business empire, I foresee 25 Seyi Tinubus and six Remi Tinubus — a prospect that has been keeping me awake all night with worry. And who knows which Chagouris might be lurking around the corner waiting for an Atiku bazaar?

I would have thought that the Northerners who helped rig the primaries for a near-senile octogenarian they all know to be an incompetent, tribal and religious bigot would be the ones who should crave good post-2027 governance the most, seeing as Tinubu has driven their people to total destitution. I would have thought that when Northerners insist on a northern president, they would be thinking of one who will stop the downward spiral into poverty and insecurity, not an ineptocrat like Kachalla Atiku. Alas, a leopard cannot change its spots. The North, it seems, is perpetually doomed to self-harm.

While I will be tweaking my plans for the future and consulting with like-minded colleagues on how to stop this incompetent octogenarian from coming close to the presidential office, I will, in the meantime, retire to my village farm, from where I will be watching Kachalla Atiku and his band of wicked vote riggers and result manipulators being mercilessly out-rigged and beaten to a pulp by Tinubu’s ruthless and superior rigging machine.

Then, it will be bye-bye to this octogenarian presidential wannabe. It will be bye-bye to the North for preferring a religious hegemonist over a competent, world-renowned economist and corporate guru.

Babachir David Lawal is a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation.