Besides Osibanjo and the lucky charm that went on to become president — Atiku Abubakar is one of the only Nigerian vice-presidents we don’t have to catch an aneurism to actually remember. Argue with someone born before 1996, please, please.
As someone who has tried for about 26 years to become the president, Atiku gives new meaning to perseverance. And it might finally be paying off. Currently, he is the strongest contender against Buhari for the number one spot in the country.
But besides internalising the very essence of perseverance, here are some of the other things Atiku has had to do to get to the posititon of having an actual shot at this presidency thing:
He became an Instagram hunny.
As the child of much younger parents, still struggling with understanding WhatsApp reply quotes, I appreciate that this was no easy feat. All his #smile captions have landed him with 245k followers, so not too shabby.
He became super active on Twitter.
Way before they even started selling nomination forms for the elections, Atiku was already sowing the seeds of popularity with the young folk. There wasn’t a trending topic he didn’t give his grown-up 2 cents on, he even learnt to dab.
Man, I really hope the youth vote is worth all this stress.
Speaking of nomination forms, Atiku has bought 4 of those. Can you imagine the bastard money he has spent?
My head doesn’t even want to process it, so I won’t even try.
He has changed political parties so many times, it’s giving me whiplash to think about it.
What is a party loyalty when the presidency is calling your name with an Ibibio accent?
He went toe-to-toe with someone who — rumour has it — once caused the bottom of a tea-cup to fall when he felt there was a sprinkle of jazz in his tea.
Long story short, Atiku wanted a chance to run for president and Obasanjo was interested in a third term, they butted heads and things went south.
Anyway, with this news, it’s quite clear the only thing Atiku fears is not becoming president one day.
Then he made up with this same Obj when it came time for the 2019 elections.
Even though love doesn’t win elections, it definitely plays a small, but mighty part.
See, he even risked American prison to prove he could tie Buhari for this travelling abroad thing, should he win the presidency.
Especially as he only got a temporary waiver to enter the US. Just goes to show, he isn’t playing around.
And if that wasn’t enough, he left the abroad breeze he was enjoying to rush to Nigeria for the presidential debates.
He might as well have stayed behind though, because the debate he rushed for, he didn’t attend it.
He came up with the ‘Atikulate’ slogan, and actually… stuck with it?
Look, if that doesn’t prove he’ll try anything to win this election, I don’t know what will.
