Ike Abonyi, Chuks Okocha and Sufuyan Ojeifo
22 November 2008
Abuja — Former vice president and candidate of the Action Congress (AC) in the April 2007 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has vowed to contest future presidential polls, particularly the one in 2011.
In an interview with THISDAY ahead of his 62nd birthday which comes up on November 25, Atiku said nothing would stop him from aspiring to the highest office in the land again.
However, he was silent on the political party platform on which he would contest, but acknowledged that he had been under intense pressure to return to his former party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Atiku urged those angling for him to return to the PDP to present the matter formally, as was the case during the government of national unity.
He said: "It was not really a romance, as such. I am aware that I received a couple of delegations from the PDP to return to the party to help reform the party, to help do this and that. What I said to them was that they should go and come back formally. If they come formally, I would take their formal request before my party. But now, most of them are coming either as friends, associates, or former colleagues and so on and so forth.
"If they formally present it, I will table it before AC and then, we would debate it. Just like President Yar'Adua, when he wanted a government of national unity, he wrote formally and we took it to the party leadership, the national Executive Committee (NEC) of the AC; we debated it and took the decision that we took. So, if they want this kind of relationship, they should come formally. If they come formally, I will table it before the party leadership and we would discuss it."
The former vice president acknowledged that the reconciliation committee headed by former vice president Alex Ekwueme had made some recommendations on how to reform the PDP, but said that those recommendations have not been ratified by a convention of the party.
"The party has adopted it (Ekwueme's report). They have set up an implementation committee; it has not started working and their convention has not even ratified what they passed at the NEC," he said.
Atiku, who described the Nigerian judiciary as "unpredictable" also confirmed that he has been under intense pressure to withdraw his presidential election petition against Yar'Adua.
"I have been under pressure to withdraw the petition, and I said I was not withdrawing. I would be prepared to accept any verdict from the Supreme Court," he said.
Although the former vice president confirmed that he had been having meetings with Yar'Adua, he said the issue of withdrawing the petition against Yar'Adua had not arisen.
Atiku said that he had no regrets over his decision to back former president Olusegun Obasanjo in 2003 even though he (Atiku) held the ace on who got the party's presidential ticket for that year's general election.
"I did what I did in 2003; and, I repeated it over and over again, because of my belief in the unity, peace and stability of this country. We had a crisis, which we inherited from the military, which had created a kind of political power imbalance in the country between the North and the South and that crisis nearly broke this country apart. We did our best to salvage it during the 1994/95 Constitutional Conference. At that conference, one of the very fundamental decisions we took was to rotate power between the North and South, so that no one region would say it would dominate political power perpetually," he said.
He said that although he had gone through all kinds of humiliation and all kinds of disagreement, since then, he still has no regrets over his decision, more so as it has helped in unravelling the personality of Obasanjo.
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leadership is all about a desire to serve, so he has the right to run for the presidency come 2011, moreso he is not obasanjo. as we all know, a vice president is a spare tyre, thereore nigerians should give him a chance come 2011 to see what he has for us.
Regardless of whose platform, we SHALL make sure that he loses again, by any means necessary. Never again we will allow this type of visionless, criminal-minded petty thieves to ever run again for any office, even as a dog-catcher - we don’t trust you to do even that one.
MR, ATIKU, WE DONT NEED U AS OUR PRESIDENT, U BETTER GET IT CLEAR. U R ONE OF THE JUNTAS OK? SHAME NO DEY CATHE U? WHAT MIRACLE DO U WANT 2 PERFOM 4 D 2ND TIME U DIS THIEF WETN U LEFT 4 D OFFICE? I IBEG STUPID ALH, GO SITDOWN AND ENYN D ONE WEY U THIEF, SILLY MAN.
Mr Atiku, What I think you should be doing now is praying to Allah to forgive you for the pains you caused in His heart and the hearts of the citizens of this natiuon. You enriched yourself at the detriment of the masses and you think that God will be there and watch you come again? If you push further, you may not get the best of life. Consider this advice and do something else.
When are these people going to get it? Why does Atiku and co think leadership is like recycling rubbish? The OBJ wasted years included Atiku and now he wants a shot at the title. When is the dead going to remain so in Nigeria? However, he was silent on the political party platform on which he would contest, this was how these people festered rot and chaos. Who needs more rubbish?