Atiku’s Ex-Aide Sheds Light On Why He Lost Presidential Election

A former close aide to Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, has provided more insight into why the Adamawa political heavyweight lost the February 25 presidential election.

Atiku lost his third presidential bid in Nigeria’s 2023 general election, coming in second position behind Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

In some of his previous attempts, Atiku did not go beyond the primary elections of the parties on whose platform he sought to contest.

His defeat in the last election was attributed to many factors, chief among which was the intense clamour for the presidential ticket of the PDP to be ceded to the southern part of the country since a northerner would have held the office for 8 years at the end of President Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure on May 29, 2023.

But one of Atiku’s former close aides, Michael Achimugu, has given additional insight and attributed the Wazirin Adamawa’s defeat to lack of political intelligence.

According to Achimugu, his former principal’s “alarming lack of awareness” and failure to heed earliest warnings about the likely exit of his running mate in the 2019 presidential election led to his defeat in the 2023 poll.

“They (Atiku’s aides) say Atiku lost because he pandered to the south. These guys never take responsibility for their actions. It’s the most incredulous arrogance I have ever witnessed in my life,” Achimugu said in a statement shared via Twitter.

“As far back as 2021, before Peter Obi himself planned to leave, I already saw it. I tweeted it here and mentioned it to Atiku in a most subtle manner. I hinted at him so that he could fix cracks early. But there is an alarming lack of awareness in that place that it frightened me.”

He accused current aides of the PDP candidate of lacking foresight and primarily concerning themselves with personal gains instead of coming up with a strategy to help Atiku win the 2023 presidential election.

“I gave them a two-year headstart to prevent the Obi situation, still. I never even said that PO should be made VP. No. But there was enough time to negotiate, agree new terms, assuage and strengthen. Let’s say PO still had to leave……handling the matter at the time I began to raise alarm would have given their party more time to absorb the shock and recover.

“But no, you lose Obi less than a year to the polls and go ahead to pick a war with five governors from states that previously yielded high votes for PDP.

“Again, imagine if the G5 were on the side of Atiku. Imagine the possibilities. Empty heads convinced Atiku to throw everybody who dared to speak their minds away.”

Although Obi left the PDP for a relatively small political party about nine months to the election, he came third place in the disputed election with about 6.1 million votes.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced in the early hours of March 1, 2023 that Tinubu scored 8.7 million votes to emerge president-elect while Atiku secure about 6.9 million votes.

Per INEC’s declaration, Atiku secured 29.07% of the total votes cast while Obi got 25.40%.