Why Atiku Abubakar is particularly jittery about the Kaduna flag-off — by Festus Keyamo
In the last few days, ahead of the flag-off of the APC Presidential Campaign Rally in Kaduna State, the ADC Presidential Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has launched a blistering online attack against the APC, particularly in the North.
The common but cheap tactic is to position cameras in certain places, procure individuals to tear down the posters of the President, and then post the videos online. The other tactic is to disseminate disinformation claiming that any support the President is seen to receive in the North is procured only through the massive deployment of financial resources. Hence the fake letter alleging a N2.3 trillion deployment for the Kaduna rally. The intention is to generate a hoopla that will create a groundswell of public opinion that President Tinubu has been “massively rejected” in the North.
The reason for this is simple: Atiku Abubakar was seriously banking on the bulk of Northern votes to see him through in 2027, knowing full well that he has no inroads at all into the South, given the mood of the country that the South deserves to complete eight years of the Presidency. In 2023, he lost across the Middle Belt (all North-Central States) and in ALL Southern States (except Osun State).
His original projection was that President Tinubu would not compete for votes in the North and would be restricted to parts of the South. This is the same reason he single-handedly sponsored some unserious presidential candidates from the South, with the aim of dividing southern votes and leaving the North alone for him to raid.
However, with the solid APC structures in the North backing the President, Atiku Abubakar has seen that his demographic calculation for the 2027 elections regarding northern votes is dissolving like Andrews Liver Salts in water. Hence the resort to these desperate tactics. He knows that even if he wins in some parts of the North and the President comes a close second, the election is as good as over, because those differences would be wiped out by his heavy defeat in the Middle Belt and the South.
Atiku Abubakar thinks he is the Buhari of 2015, who swept the Northern votes. He thinks that was a display of ethnic support. He fails to realise that his corruption-laden past puts him poles apart from a Muhammadu Buhari, and that Northerners do not tolerate such persons with the putrid smell of corruption.
Atiku Abubakar is a butterfly that thinks it is a bird.
–Keyamo, SAN is Minister of Aviation
