By Zik Gbemre
To put it bluntly, Atiku Abubakar can best be described as a man who has well-established his multi-billion-dollar companies/businesses ‘at the expense of Nigeria.’ In other words, Atiku made himself rich at the expense of the country. That is why we see Atiku as someone who is too corrupt to rule this nation. Atiku is a thief, plain and simple as said by his former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo. Aside the fact that he does not have to become President of Nigeria to make a difference in the society, if Atiku really wants to make difference in the country as he claims, then he should start by returning all the money he has allegedly stolen and made off of Nigeria.
Atiku is someone who is all out to get political power by all means. And he has been on it since 1993. He is one of the key founders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), even though at a point, he went to join the Action Congress (AC) party, and then he went back to PDP, and then APC, before moving back to PDP. He was the one said to had introduced the National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP), which later failed. And he was part of those in the formation of the Universal Basic Education. As a businessman, Atiku claimed he has up to 50,000 employees, which has remained a controversy. But to his credit, he has a private University known as the American University, where he gave out scholarships to at least 15 of the Chibok girls that were rescued from Boko Haram. He also built a Feed Mill, which includes Silos Towers used to store grains and fermented produce. Atiku has all kinds of companies. From shipping companies, oil and gas companies, media companies, beverages companies, communication companies, micro-finance companies, to Real Estate and private University. Some say Atiku’s net worth is $1.4Billion. And one of his companies, Intels, is said to have made $802.7Million in one year alone. His holding company, Orlean Invest West Africa Ltd, is actually a Panama Corporation. Yet, Atiku reportedly told INEC in 2018 when he came out to indicate interest to run for the Presidency, that his yearly income is just N20Million (about $55,000), which of course is a huge lie.
According to Atiku’s Biography, he said he was ready to leave school in order to go and fight the Civil War. But when he went to sign up to fight against the Biafrans then, they did not take him in the Nigerian Army. Otherwise, who knows, he would have become one of the military rulers of this country. That was how he had to go back to school to finish his education and graduated with a Diploma in Law from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria. In 1969, at the age of 23, Atiku was recruited to work at the Department of the Nigerian Customs in Lagos. In 1987, he became one of the Six Deputy Directors of Customs then. He however resigned in 1989 because, according to his biography, he said that he was not made a Director of Customs, and he wanted to go into politics.
Now, there are more than a dozen counts of corruption charges against Atiku, even though he was never convicted of any of his crimes, that does not mean these things did not take place. Let us start with how he made his money. Some years before Atiku resigned from the Nigerian Customs, even though he was a Deputy Director of Customs at that time, he started his own Shipping and Clearing company called NICOTES, and it was operating within the same Apapa Port, where he was working as a Deputy Director of Customs. That is despite that fact that the Code of Conduct Bureau in Nigeria, prevents Civil Servants from having private businesses, not to talk of one that is of direct conflict of interest to their jobs. The company’s name was later changed to INTELS Nigeria Ltd, and is now public. According to his biography, that was how he made a lot of money. There are also reports that Bola Tinubu is one of those who holds majority of the shares. INTELS is now described as a Logistics & Facility Services provider. And their story is, if you go through the Government to clear your goods at the Customs, it will take longer. So, it is better you go through them (INTELS), and they will make it easier. That was one of the things that INTELS do. They work with the Government as a Third-party. They also do oil and gas cargo handling. INTELS actually became so big that they have taken over Four of the Ports in Nigeria – Onne, Warri, Lagos and Calabar. They once reported that they have made $6.7Billion for the Nigerian Government in the last 30 years. But they however, did not say how much they actually made” within this same period.
The problem now is, before President Buhari’s tenure, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) had entered into an agreement; whereby Third-parties like INTELS owned by Atiku, were the ones that collect money from customers. It is only after taking their own profit as they like, that they then give the rest to the Government. Apparently, that is against the Constitution according to the Attorney-General’s Office. It was revealed that the Third-parties were making huge money off of the Nigerian Government. So, in other to block the revenue generation leakages, former President Goodluck Jonathan introduced the Treasury Singular Account (TSA) policy in 2012. However, it was never implemented when Jonathan was in power. INTELS was still collecting all the money and giving the Government what was left after collecting their own profit. But when President Buhari became President, he appointed Hadiza Bala Usman as the new Director of NPA, and since she got into that position, she decided to implement the TSA policy. So, that Third-parties like Atiku’s INTELS, will deliver the full payment from customers to the Government. And then they will charge the Government for their own services, and the Government will pay them for such services. Other Companies complied but Atiku’s company, INTELS, did not. Hadiza Bala Usman was reported to have said that Atiku’s company, INTELS, withholds millions of US Dollars from the Government every year. Atiku’s company was given 15 months within which to comply to the new policy, but they did not. This led to the Government to stop using them as a Third-party.
A lot of people believe that this is one of the reasons why Atiku wants to run for the seat of the President against Buhari, aside other personal reasons. So that if he becomes President, he may reverse the situation with his company. Again, Atiku has been accused of embezzlement and diversion of public funds into his private businesses. In 2007, Atiku was accused by a Senate Investigation Committee/Panel, of diverting $145Million from the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF). This was when he was still Vice President under former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Also, the US Senate, in its report in 2010, accused Atiku of laundering more than $40Million to the US through his Fourth wife, Jennifer Douglas, an Igbo woman who is actually an American citizen and was living then in Maryland. Atiku was said to have allegedly collected more than $4.6Million bribe from a German Corporation in exchange for winning contracts in Nigeria. Also, he allegedly worked with a US Congressman Mr. William Jefferson, who reportedly bribed Atiku with $500,000 so that he could get a major contract in Nigeria for a technology company, in which he has a stake. The American Police actually found $90,000 cash in the Congressman’s deep freezer at the time, and he was sentenced to 13 years in prison, this happened in 2005, and that was the same time the US FBI raided Atiku’s 21-Rooms Mansion in Maryland, USA, where his Fourth wife was living, before she absconded and relocated to Dubai, even though she is an American citizen. Since the FBI raided Atiku’s house in 2005, he has not been seen in the US, that was 14 years ago, until recently when he was reportedly to have sneaked into the US and quickly sneaked back just to clear any public view that might be used against his ambition to the Presidency. Some critics say that Atiku must have gone to the US under the guise of the official retinue of the Senate President, Bukola Saraki, to the US. They said that if Atiku had stayed longer, he would have been investigated by the US Security authorities and charge to court.
When Atiku first hinted that he will run for the seat of the President, his former boss, Obasanjo, said that God will never forgive him if he supports Atiku because he knows the ‘real Atiku’. But after a meeting in October 2018, which Atiku attended in company of some Senators and some powerful religious leaders, Obasanjo made a U-turn to say he is now supporting Atiku. According to online current affairs analyst, Adeola Fayehun, “Obasanjo has been Atikulated.” This is how these politicians confuse many Nigerians of who they should vote for. But Nigerians should never vote for anyone because of one person’s endorsement. This is because Nigerians do not really know what these politicians must have gained or stand to gain from such endorsements, but the people will obviously not have anything to gain.
Let us recall that this was the same Obasanjo, who, on different national television networks, publicly tore his PDP card, denouncing his membership, and said he would remain a neutral elder’s statesman. We were therefore surprised that he came out publicly, to prove himself wrong with that endorsement stunt. So, what exactly must have changed Obasanjo’s mind? Obasanjo would have remained neutral after the public destruction of his PDP membership card drama. Also, has Obasanjo forgotten what he said about Atiku? How that the US sent them a letter in 2006, where they listed some persons that needed to be investigated, and how Atiku’s name was on that list? And we all know the cold war between Obasanjo and Atiku since they both left office years ago. So, what changed all of sudden to have warranted this automatic endorsement of Atiku by Obasanjo? Is Obasanjo telling Nigerians that we should ignore all his past statements on Atiku? Or should we call him a joker, a comedian or what? Whatever the case may be, when a man says one thing and does another, that man can never be trusted with anything. Such a man cannot be trusted to lead anyone, let alone a group of people, or an entire country. That means, such a man, and those rallying around him, should never be taken seriously.
The truth is that Obasanjo has destroyed Atiku’s political career with his book titled “My Watch.” If Atiku was someone whose hands are clean, he ought to have sued Obasanjo for libel. But the taste for political power has so blinded Atiku that he does not mind how he gets there. But he does not know the permanent damage done to him by his former boss through that book. For a former President to sit down and write a lengthy book to indict his former Vice, it means a lot. Nobody takes Atiku seriously, and Obasanjo’s present action is nothing but an afterthought, and medicine after death. If Buhari had allowed the EFCC to prosecute Obasanjo and even Atiku, they will say all kinds of things about Buhari and that he is fighting the opposition camps, and he does not believe in democracy.
For Obasanjo, after writing the said lengthy book, and then turned around to praise the same man he painted bad, it means he should never be trusted. It means he is not fighting for the interest of this country. A man of such political stature ought to stand firm and be principled. But he is now joining PDP to campaign. What does Obasanjo want in life that he has not gotten? Obasanjo recent action has dented his name, at both the local and international scene. Insatiable Greed, is the problem of these politicians and they keep on acquiring wealth as if they will not die. Where are the Nigerian richest men in the early 70s and 80s and their properties in Nigeria? They think they will live forever. In a civilized society where laws and the institutions work, and where the people are not afraid to say the truth, the likes of Atiku should not dare to contest election in the first place.
I am not a politician, but I will not support someone like Atiku for the Presidency, when I have the option of voting for President Buhari. All my life, I have never been a praise singer, but I state things as they are and the way I see them. I am not a member of any political party for now, neither am I affiliated to any party for now. Though, I might not be a Politician, but I have the right to support any political candidate of my choice. Some of my critics say that my views are becoming too political. I told them it is because I am not speaking in their favour. I say things the way I see them. We have two major Presidential candidates, Buahri and Atiku, but I see Buahri as a more decent and focused leader than Atiku, who is now ‘Atikulating politicians with US Dollars rain. The campaign against Buhari is that he will Islamize Nigerian, but they fail to understand that two Presidential candidates of the PDP and APC, Buahri and Atiku, are Muslims and from the North. They both have Christian running mates. Osibanjo is a Senior Pastor in Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), while Peter Obi is a known Christian. They both are above 70 years old. But one was a former military officer, while the other was a former paramilitary officer of Customs.
In my own view, Buhari will win Atiku hands down. Even the Northerners do not trust Atiku because they believe he has no integrity at all. The above records of history are proof of this fact. The South-West have taken their decision because they are waiting after the four years of Buhari, while the South-South and the South East part are divided between Buhari and Atiku. Most of the people making noise in the social media and print media do not really vote. And I know that in a couple of days after the Presidential election, Atiku will head to the court to contest his failing. He thought Onnoghen would have been there for him. But Onnoghen and the NBA Chairman are fighting on how to survive the war of graft against them.
These politicians think Buhari is weak and sick, but I believe the man is focused and doing what is in his mind. Agreed he is not an orator, but he is stern and focused, while Atiku is blowing trumpet, but he is losing the fight. So, while the PDP supporters are jubilating, they are actually losing grounds daily to the APC. This is the way I see it.
Zik Gbemre.
National Coordinator
Niger Delta Peace Coalition (NDPC)
