INTRODUCTION
Not all generations have the privilege to have great leaders: the “One Man” who would have foresight and direction for the masses. This generation has a rare privilege to be blessed with a man like Atiku Abubakar who has emerged as one of the best personalities in the continent of Africa.
Atiku Abubakar is a leader you cannot forget in a hurry. His quality and style of leadership cuts across religion and ethnicity; his acceptability continues to grow by the day. This complete gentle man is one of those unique and special people that understood the meaning of and living the words from Micah 6:8 —
“…The LORD has told you what is good,
and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love with mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.”
Atiku Abubakar is an instrument of peace that shows love where there is hatred; pardon where there is injury, faith where there is doubt, light where there is darkness, hope where there is despair, and love where there is hatred. As you go through this book, you will be inspired to work hard and achieve true success.
FAMILY LIFE
Atiku Abubakar was born on 25 November 1946 in Jada, a village which was then under the administration of the British Cameroons – the territory later joined with the Federation of Nigeria in the 1961 British Cameroons referendum. His father, Garba Abubakar was a Fulani trader and farmer, and his mother was Aisha Kande. He was named after his paternal grandfather Atiku Abdulqadir and became the only child of his parents when his only sister died at infancy. In 1957, his father died by drowning while crossing a river to Toungo, a neighbouring village to Jada.
Abubakar has four wives and twenty eight children. Atiku said: “I wanted to expand the Abubakar family. I felt extremely lonely as a child. I had no brother and no sister. I did not want my children to be as lonely as I was. This is why I married more than one wife. My wives are my sisters, my friends, and my advisers and they complement one another.
In 1971, he married Titilayo Albert, in Lagos, her family was initially opposed to the union. Her children include: Fatima, Adamu, Halima and Aminu. In 1979, he married Ladi Yakubu as his second wife. He has six children with Ladi: Abba, Atiku, Zainab, Ummi-Hauwa, Maryam and Rukaiyatu. Abubakar later divorced Ladi, allowing him to marry, as his fourth wife (the maximum permitted him as a Muslim), Jennifer Iwenjiora Douglas.
In 1983 he married his third wife, Princess Rukaiyatu, daughter of the Lamido of Adamawa, Aliyu Mustafa. Her children are: Aisha, Hadiza, Aliyu (named after her late father), Asmau, Mustafa, Laila and Abdulsalam. In 1986, he married his fourth wife, Fatima Shettima. Her children include: Amina (Meena), Mohammed and two sets of twins Ahmed/ Shehu & Zainab/ Aisha and Hafsat.
EDUCATION BACKGROUND
His father was opposed to the idea of Western education and tried to keep Atiku Abubakar out of the traditional school system. When the government discovered that Abubakar was not attending mandatory schooling, his father spent a few days in jail until Aisha Kande’s mother paid the fine. At the age of eight, Abubakar enrolled in the Jada Primary School, Adamawa. After completing his primary school education in 1960, he was admitted into Adamawa Provincial Secondary School in the same year, alongside 59 other students.
He graduated from secondary school in 1965 after he made grade three in the west African senior school certificate.
Following secondary school, Abubakar studied a short while at the Nigeria Police College in Kaduna. He left the College when he was unable to present an O-Level Mathematics result, and worked briefly as a Tax Officer in the Regional Ministry of Finance, from where he gained admission to the School of Hygiene in Kano in 1966. He graduated with a Diploma in 1967, having served as Interim Student Union President at the school. In 1967 he enrolled for a Law Diploma at the Ahmedu Bello University Institute of Administration, on a scholarship from the regional government. After graduation in 1969, during the Nigerian civil war, he was employed by the Nigeria custom service.
CAREER BACKGROUND
Abubakar worked in the Nigeria customs service for twenty years, rising to become the Deputy Director, as the second highest position in the Service was then known. He retired in April 1989 and took up full-time business and politics. Abubakar started out in the real estate business during his early days as a Customs Officer.
In 1974, he applied for and received a 31,000 naira loan to build his first house in Yola, which he put up for rent. From proceeds of the rent, he purchased another plot and built a second house. He continued this way, building a sizeable portfolio of property in Yola, Nigeria. In 1981, he moved into agriculture, acquiring 2,500 hectares of land near Yola to start a maize and cotton farm. The business fell on hard times and closed in 1986. “My first foray into agriculture, in the 1980s, ended in failure,” he wrote in an April 2014 blog.He then ventured into trading, buying and selling truckloads of rice, flour and sugar.
Abubakar’s most important business move came while he was a Customs Officer at the Apapa Ports. Gabrielle Volpi, an Italian businessman in Nigeria, invited him to set up Nigeria Container Services (NICOTES), a logistics company operating within the Ports. NICOTES would later go on to become Intels Nigeria Limited and provide immense wealth to Abubakar. Abubakar is a co-founder of Intels Nigeria Limited, an oil servicing business with extensive operations in Nigeria and abroad.
Atiku’s other business interests are centred within Yola, Adamawa; and include the Adama Beverages Limited, a beverage manufacturing plant in Yola, an animal feed factory, and the American University of Nigeria, the first American-style private university to be established in Sub-Saharan Africa.
EARLY POLITICAL CAREER
Abubakar’s first foray into politics was in the early 1980s, when he worked behind-the-scenes on the governorship campaign of Bamanga Tukur, who at that time was managing director of the Nigeria Ports Authority. He canvassed for votes on behalf of Tukur, and also donated to the campaign.
Towards the end of his Customs career, he met General Shehu Musa Yar Adua, who had been second-in-command Chief of staff, supreme headquaters between 1976 and 1979. Abubakar was drawn by Yar’Adua into the political meetings that were now happening regularly in Yar’Adua’s Lagos home, which gave rise to the Peoples Front of Nigeria (PFN). The PFN included politicians such as Umaru Musa yar Adua, Baba Gana Kingibe, Bola Tinubu, Sabo bakin zuwo, Rbiu kwankwaso, and Abdulahi aliyu sumaila..
In 1989, Abubakar was elected the National Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Front of Nigeria in the build-up to the third Nigeria republic. Abubakar won a seat to represent his constituency at the 1989 Constituent Assembly, set up to decide a new constitution for Nigeria. The People’s Front was eventually denied registration by the military government (none of the groups that applied was registered), and the PFN merged with the government-created social democratic party (SDP).
On 1 September 1990, Abubakar announced his Gongola State gubernatorial bid. A year later, before the elections could hold, Gongola State was broken up into two – Adamawa and Taraba States – by the Federal Government. Abubakar fell into the new Adamawa State. After the contest he won the SDP Primaries in November 1991, but was soon disqualified by the government from contesting the elections.
In 1933, Abubakar contested the SDP presidential primaries. The results after the first ballot of the primaries held in Jos were: Moshood Abiola with 3,617 votes, Baba gana kingibe with 3,255 votes and Abubakar with 2,066 votes. Abubakar and Kingibe considered joining forces combining 5,231 votes to challenge Abiola. However, after Shehu Yar’Adua asked Atiku Abubakar to withdraw from the campaign, with Abiola promising to make him his running mate. Abiola was later pressured by SDP governors to select Kinigbe as his vice prudential running mate, in the June 12 presidential election
After the June 12 and during the General Sani Abacha transition, Abubakar he showed interest to contest for the presidency under the united Nigeria congress party, the transition program came to an end with the death of General Abacha. In 1998, Abubakar joined the peoples democratic party (PDP) and later secured nomination for governor of Adamawa state, winning the December 1998 governorship elections, but before he could be sworn in he accepted a position as the running mate to the PDP presidential candidate, former military head of state General OLUSEGUN obasanjo who went on to win the 1999 presidential election ushering in the fourth Nigerian
Republic
VICE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA
On 29 May 1999, Abubakar was sworn in as vice president of Nigeria. His first term was mainly characterized by his role as Chairman of the National Economic Council and head of the national council on privitization, overseeing the sale of hundreds of loss-making and poorly managed public enterprises alongside Nasir el rufai. This role he performed excellently.
Abubakar’s second term as vice president was marked by a stormy relationship with President Obasanjo.In 2006, Abubakar was involved in a bitter public battle with his boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, ostensibly arising from the latter’s bid to amend certain provisions of the constitution to take another shot at the presidency.
The controversy generated by the failed constitutional amendment momentarily caused a rift in the People’s Democratic Party. The national assembly eventually vetoed the amendments allowing Obasanjo to run for another term. In 2006, Abubakar fell out with his boss Olusegun Obasanjo and left from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the action congress of Nigeria (ACN) in preparation for the 2007 elections.
POLITICS
Following the 2007 elections, Abubakar returned to the People’s Democratic Party. In October 2010 he announced his intention to contest for the Presidency. On 22 November, a Committee of Northern Elders selected him as the Northern Consensus Candidate, over former Military President Ibrahim Babangida, former National Security Adviser Aliyu Gusau and Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State. In January 2011, Abubakar contested for the Presidential ticket of his party alongside President Jonathan and Sarah Jubril, and lost the primary, garnering 805 votes to President Jonathan’s 2736.
In a November 2013 interview, regarding Obasanjo’s alleged attempts to justify his third term bid, Abubakar is quoted as saying: “[He] informed me that ‘I left power twenty years ago, I left Mubarak in office, I left Mugabe in office, I left Eyadema in office, I left Umar Bongo, and even Paul Biya and I came back and they are still in power; and I just did eight years and you are asking me to go; why?’ And I responded to him by telling him that Nigeria is not Libya, not Egypt, not Cameroun, and not Togo; I said you must leave; even if it means both of us lose out, but you cannot stay. On 30 March 2014, Nigerian media reported that a delegation from the Northern Youth Leaders Forum visited Obasanjo at his home in Abeokuta and pleaded with him to “forgive your former vice-president, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of whatever political sin or offence he might have committed against you.” In response, Obasanjo is quoted as saying that “as a leader and father, I bear no grudge against anybody and if there is, I have forgiven them all.
In August 2013, the (INEC) registered two new political parties. One of them was the People’s Democratic Movement. Local media reports suggested that the party was formed by Abubakar as a back-up plan in case he was unable to fulfill his rumored presidential ambitions on the PDP platform.[ In a statement Abubakar acknowledged that the PDM was founded by his “political associates”, but that he remained a member of the PDP.
ELECTIONS
In a bid to deplore his wealth of experience, Atiku Abubakar has unsuccessfully contested six times for the office of the president of Nigeria in 1993, 1998, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019. In 1993, he contested the social’ democratic party presidential primaries losing to Moshood Abiola and Baba gana kingibe. In 1998, he showed interest in contesting for the presidency united Nigeria congress party losing out to General Sani Abacha, who forced all the five political parties then to endorse him. He was a presidential candidate of the action congress in the 2007 presidential election coming in third to Umaru Yar adua of the PDP and muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP. He contested the presidential primaries of the PDP during the 2011 Presidential election losing out to incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan
On 25 November 2006 Abubakar announced that he would run for president. On 20 December 2006, he was chosen as the presidential candidate of the action congress (AC). On 14 March 2007, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the final list of 24 aspirants for 21 April presidential election. Abubakar’s name was missing from the ballot. INEC issued a statement stating that Abubakar’s name was missing because he was on a list of persons indicted for corruption by a panel set up by the government. Abubakar headed to the courts on 16 March to have his disqualification overturned. The supreme court unanimously ruled on 16 April that INEC had no power to disqualify candidates The ruling allowed Abubakar to contest the election, although there were concerns that it might not be possible to provide ballots with Abubakar’s name by 21 April, the date of the election. On 17 April, a spokesman for INEC said that Abubakar would be on the ballot. According to official results, Abubakar took third place, behind PDP candidate Umaru Yar Adua and ANPP candidate Muhammadu Buhari, with approximately 7% of the vote (2.6 million votes). Abubakar rejected the election results and called for its cancellation, describing it as Nigeria’s “worst election ever. He stated that he would not attend Umaru Yar’Adua’s inauguration on 29 May due to his view that the election was not credible, saying that he did not want to “dignify such a hollow ritual with my presence”.
Abubakar with Muhammadu Buhari.
On 2 February 2014, Abubakar left the People’s Democratic Party and became a founding member APC, with the ambition of contesting for the presidency ahead of the 2015 presidential election The results of the APC presidential primaries results held in Lagos was: Muhammadu Buhari with 3,430 votes, Rabiu Kwankwaso with 974 votes, Atiku Abubakar with 954 votes, Rochas Okorocha with 400 votes and Sam nda isiah with 10 votes. On Friday, 24 November 2017, Abubakar announced his exit from the All Progressives Congress (APC), and returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on 3 December 2017. He said he decided to ‘return home’ to the PDP now that the issues which made him leave the party had been resolved.
In 2018, Abubakar began his presidential campaign and secured the party nomination of the PDP in the presidential primaries held in Port Harcourt on 7 October 2018. He defeated all the other aspirants and got 1,532 votes, 839 more than the runner-up, the Governor of Sokoto state Aminu Tambuwal. Atiku Abubakar continued his campaign rally in Kogi State as he promised to complete abandoned projects in the state. On 30 January, he participated in the town hall meeting tagged #NGTheCandidate. And in the meeting, he declared that he will privatize 90% of NNPC, in order to make it work better. Atiku took his campaigns to Katsina, visit Emir of Daura on 7 February 2019 On February 27, 2019, Atiku lost the presidential election to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari by over 3 million votes. The appealed at the Supreme Court and described the election as the “worst in Nigeria’s democratic history.”
ATIKU ACHIEVEMENTS AS VICE PRESIDENT
As Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar once listed some of his legacies as a former number two citizen of the country.
Atiku, who was replying a letter written by Nigerian comedian Francis Agoda, better known as IGoDye querying his days in office as the nation’s number two citizen, revealed how he gave political nacking backings for the banking consolidation, telecoms revolution among others.
He listed the following:
1. “My legacy as Vice President, I would say is the banking consolidation process, for which I gave political backing for. Many big people were putting a lot of political pressure to not change the status quo, but we knew that if that consolidation was not done, Nigeria could not grow. Because of that banking consolidation, Nigerian banks don’t fail anymore the way they used to”.
2. “I oversaw the telecoms revolution, which is why young people like you, I Go Dye, now have a flourishing career. Under our tenure, we witnessed a large repatriation of Nigerians back to Nigeria, driven by the hope of the recovering economy. It is sad that many of those young people are heading back abroad now — this is to show you that leadership matters.”
3. In my home state of Adamawa for example, I’ve created over 50,000 direct jobs and 250,000 indirect ones. We are the largest private employers of labour in the state only second to the state government. It’s not a lot, but it does help reduce unemployment.”
4. “As VP, I assembled what is arguably the best Economic Team ever in Nigeria. It was made up of young, world class professionals, who came home to work. Some of those professionals are now political leaders, governors and world leaders in their own right.”
5. “I have a proven record of bringing young, unknown professionals into service. Many of the professionals and ministers I brought in were in their 30s and early 40s. Some of those young leaders have become governors in their states. I went to the World Bank and met a bright lady, convinced her to come back home, and she became a star in our government. To show you we had effective leadership, the same lady could not replicate her exploits under a different government.”
ABOUT THE BOOK
Not all generations have the privilege to have great leaders: the “One Man” who would have foresight and direction for the masses. This generation has a rare privilege to be blessed with a man like Atiku Abubakar who has emerged as one of the best personalities in the continent of Africa.
Atiku Abubakar is a leader you cannot forget in a hurry. His quality and style of leadership cuts across religion and ethnicity; his acceptability continues to grow by the day. This complete gentle man is one of those unique and special people that understood the meaning of and living the words from Micah 6:8 —
“…The LORD has told you what is good,
and this is what he requires of you:
to do what is right, to love with mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God.”
Atiku Abubakar is an instrument of peace that shows love where there is hatred; pardon where there is injury, faith where there is doubt, light where there is darkness, hope where there is despair, and love where there is hatred. As you go through this book, you will be inspired to work hard and achieve true success.
In this book, you will find….
His Family life
Education background
Career background
Early political career
Vice president of nigeria
Politics
Elections
Atiku achievements as vice president
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MARVELOUS OKHAI, an evangelist, author and blogger studied at Federal polytechnic Auchi, Edo state, Nigeria, university of Lagos, and the word of faith bible school. He hails from etsako central Local Government Area of Edo State, Nigeria.He is the executive secretary of Global Rights And Development newspaper all over Nigeria. He is an established author of International. He is also the editor in chief of ASO ROCK MIRROR NEWSPAPER– This is a widely read so many books like Home Sweet Home, Overcoming The Spirit Of Unforgiveness, etc. he has been active in for front of youth development in Nigeria. He is a pastor, an evangelist and a conference speaker. His contact are marvelousokhai@gmail.com , +2348160900157.He is married to pretty Christy and they are blessed. He loves the Lord with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength above all else to be a soul winner for Jesus Christ
