There has been quite some drama out there in the lead up to Nigeria’s 2027 general elections and one of the most outstanding episodes would be the unending, protracted feud between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and his former running mate, former Vice-President, Waziri Atiku Abubakar. Both were in charge of Nigeria at the centre between 1999 and 2007. Theirs is a decades old fight, gladiators in the arena since the 2000s. More than twenty years later the two leaders are still at daggers drawn, obviously this is one of the longest, surviving feuds in Nigeria’s political history, re-enacted every political season since 2003, but the roots of the conflict are much older. Waziri Atiku Abubakar had been elected as Governor of Adamawa state in 1999, but President Olusegun Obasanjo took the decision to have him as his Vice President after the elections, and hence Atiku left Yola for Abuja, and the better-appointed precincts of Aso Rock Presidential Villa. It seemed like a brotherhood made in Heaven as the Obasanjo-Atiku, Yoruba-Fulani, Christian-Muslim combination looked like the right solution that Nigeria needed after the years of division and pain that was inflicted on the country by the prolonged abuse of military rule. Atiku was the perfect image of a Vice President. He had the trust of his principal. He was assigned the big task of overseeing the economy and the privatization process initiated by the Obasanjo administration. He chaired the administration’s economic management council. His principal allowed him to have voice, scope and influence. He loved it.
It was a period when Governors and their Deputies in the states soon began to behave like quarrelsome housewives – as in Lagos state where Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu, as he then was, and his Deputy Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele fought each other to a standstill. The latter had to resign in December 2002, and also in Abia State where then Governor Orji Uzor Kalu became a sworn enemy of his Deputy Governor, Enyinnaya Abaribe. Abaribe resigned as Deputy Governor of Abia state on 7 March, 2003. He declared for the All-Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) on whose platform he sought to become Governor and challenge his principal. On March 15, 2003, he was formally impeached by the Abia State House of Assembly. By this time, there were cracks also, already at the Presidential level. Ahead of the April 2003 general elections, the relationship between President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Deputy had soured amidst speculations that Atiku Abubakar had become so powerful that he was plotting to displace his boss, Obasanjo as president.
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Obasanjo’s main opponent in the 2003 election was General Muhammadu Buhari, but the enemy within that he faced was his own Deputy, Atiku Abubakar, who had become so big under Obasanio’s watch that he threatened to take over the Presidential position during the primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to which both belonged. The narrative at the time was that Atiku had the support and the solidarity of the PDP governors across the nation, 21 of them, and together they were going to switch the 2003 ticket from Obasanjo to Atiku and make Obasanjo a one-term President. There were reports that Obasanjo was in such a helpless situation, he had to beg his own Deputy to be allowed to hang on. He was said to have been so humiliated by the same man that he lifted up to become a national figure at the centre and gave so much influence. Those in the know claimed that Obasanjo was at Atiku’s mercy until the very last minute when by some magic, the governors switched again and Obasanjo got the ticket. He would then go on to win the 2003 Presidential election with 26 states plus the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), 61. 94 per cent of the votes. Atiku remained his Deputy but there was no longer any love lost between them. Atiku had violated the first law of power: Never Outshine The Master.
As soon as they assumed office in May 2003, for a second term, the Presidency was no longer the same. It became a divided house. It became a toxic Presidency. The then Vice President Atiku Abubakar was stripped of the powers and privileges that he had hitherto enjoyed. Presidential aides on both sides of the Villa fed into the feud and exploited every occasion for their own gains. The Villa practically became a rumour mill, with everyone working at cross purposes. The poisoned atmosphere went far beyond the Villa and determined relationships in the larger society. You were either for Obasanjo or Atiku. While the usual rivalry and animosity between Governors and their Deputies raged in the states, the Obasanjo Presidency had no right to occupy any moral high ground, because it was embroiled in a worse crisis of its own, with the President and the Vice President trading allegations of corrupt personal enrichment against each other. I was a witness to the history of that moment and in a series of articles titled “A Bolekaja Presidency”, I documented many aspects of how the Obasanjo Presidency lost its second term in office to the politics of division, hate and mutual suspicion.
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Politics is as much about events and personalities as it is about memory. Since 2003 till date, Obasanjo and Atiku have refused to allow the old wounds to heal. Every election cycle since 2007, Atiku has attempted to succeed his former boss, and at every turn, his main adversary, even when he was no longer on the ballot, has been this former boss. Atiku has moved from one party to the other, the Obasanjo obstacle continues to stand in his way. After the 2003 conflict and during the Bolekaja Presidency, it is a matter of public record that Obasanjo and Atiku worked at cross purposes. Someday, a researcher would do well to calculate the cost of that disruption at the highest level of the Nigerian government. It is known for example that the 2005 National Political Reform Conference, a national dialogue convened by President Olusegun Obasanjo, with 400 delegates who agreed on about 187 out of 189 issues on the table, collapsed, not merely because of the argument over “resource control” but because a conversation about policy and governance got reduced to the sold idea that Obasanjo wanted to use the Conference to impose a third term on the country for himself. Obasanjo has forever insisted that this was blackmail, and that he never did anything to sit tight in office. It was the season of the Bolekaja fight, and many have identified Atiku as a spoiler in the game. The drama was re-enacted recently when President Obasanjo claimed that indeed Atiku had bribed the late Rt. Hon. Ghali Na’Abba, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, a sum of ₦5 million, to have him impeached as President.
Atiku wasted no time firing back, giving additional fuel to an old war. He says: “Coming at a time when the political landscape ahead of the 2027 general election is taking shape, the obvious objective is to besmirch my person and reputation and confer an undeserved political advantage on the former President’s kinsman… Nigerians, however, know better. They are too discerning to be distracted by stale allegations resurrected for political convenience…My offence was that I stood firmly against the unconstitutional third-term agenda. As a democrat, I chose the path of constitutionalism and the rule of law. Rather than surrender democratic principles on the altar of personal ambition, I defended the Constitution and successfully asserted my rights through the courts in a series of landmark legal victories against a sitting President. Those battles are now part of Nigeria’s democratic history. It is evident that the bitterness arising from that defining period has failed to leave former President Olusegun Obasanjo.”
This was sometime around 24 July. Obasanjo, not one to take a punch, without hitting back, saw an opportunity for a rebuttal at a book presentation organised by Charly Boy Oputa (the only 76-year-old man in Nigerian history who calls himself a boy, the only aging grandfather who prefers to remain a boy- when will Charly Man step up?). Charly Boy had asked President Obasanjo during an interactive session if he had any regrets in the course of his public career. Obasanjo said his biggest mistake was the man he chose as his running mate, his Deputy. He bluntly refused to mention his name, the highest level of contempt that could be reserved for any human being. He was of course referring to Waziri Atiku Abubakar who has also since retorted telling Obasanjo: “I cleaned you up when you needed me; I stood against you when Nigeria needed me.” Atiku doubled down on his claim that Obasanjo wanted a third term in office and he was proud to have led a “rebellion” against him. He added: “History records that while Chief Obasanjo was in prison, I stood firmly by him. I supported his family, worked tirelessly with other patriots for his release… When he eventually regained his freedom, he had little to his name. I received him, clothed him, ensured he was properly cared for and extended every support necessary for him to regain his footing…” Thus, the “Bolekaja” war between both elders is back. This means a lot in the context of the race towards the 2027 presidential election.
Waziri Atiku Abubakar is in the race, as Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), the seventh time he is seeking to be president (1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, 2023), and at 79 years of age, (he will be 80 in November 2026) this is most likely his last possible chance. If he loses this time around, he will be too old to be a sellable presidential candidate in 2031. Obasanjo is not running. But he once said that God will be displeased with him if ever supports Atiku’s ambition to be president of Nigeria. His objection to Atiku therefore looks like a pact with God. It may not be true that he is supporting his kinsman, Tinubu for 2027 as Atiku claims, in fact if he endorsed anybody in recent memory, that would be Peter Obi in 2023. Atiku claims he fed and clothed him in the past, thus more or less calling him an ingrate. But Obasanjo considers Atiku a traitor, who is unfit for high office. As Atiku’s former boss, he has most recently just issued a testimonial and a reference that discredits Atiku in the public domain. Both men make their quarrel look like a fight-to-finish, a do-or-die conflict, with two elephants fighting, what Yorubas call “ija agba meji.”
In African societies, when two young persons are quarrelling, it is the responsibility of elders to step in and make peace. Now in the case of Obasanjo and Atiku, it is the other way round. We, therefore, call on both elder statesmen to sheathe their swords and allow peace to reign. They should leave whatever grievances that may exist between them to the judgement of history. Obasanjo is almost 90. Atiku is almost 80. What else can both men be fighting for like bitter rivals at such an advanced age? What kind of example are they setting for the younger generation? The hardest part of any relationship should be knowing when to let go. Obasanjo and Atiku can co-exist in Nigeria’s political space without crossing each other’s path. They can demonstrate a good example to the nation.
Their fight, reenacted for the umpteenth time, as Nigeria prepares for the 2027 elections and the campaigns begin on 19 August, is one distraction that the people can do without This is a season that should be dominated by ideas – the manifestoes of the political parties, the contract of the candidates with the people, and how to move this country forward. The politics of abuse, name-calling and unresolved hate, may provide entertainment for the audience, but it does not move the country forward. It is undesirable. Atiku’s spokespersons do him great injustice devoting their best efforts to gripping words of abuse to malign his perceived opponents. They would do a better job to tell Nigerians why Atiku should be considered a better man for the job. By fighting Obasanjo, they take their eyes off the ball, and it will be remembered that their candidate was distracted when it mattered most. Obasanjo in comparison, has nothing to lose.
Reuben Abati, a former presidential spokesperson, writes from Lagos.
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