A former Labour Party vice-presidential candidate, Datti Baba-Ahmed, has pointed out a major lesson that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar should have learned from President Bola Tinubu who “knows how to tie you with your own rope”.
This was as he declared that the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) would have won the 2027 presidency if he had supported Peter Obi in the 2023 presidential election.
According to him, had Atiku been patient and acted like President Bola Tinubu, who offered others the political platform to contest presidential elections, he (Baba-Ahmed) would have agreed to step down in 2027 and urged Obi to do the same.
Speaking during an appearance on Inside Sources on Channels Television, Baba-Ahmed argued that Atiku missed an opportunity to build long-term political goodwill by backing younger politicians and waiting for his turn, a strategy he said Tinubu had successfully employed over the years.
“If in 2023 elections, he took everyone by surprise, played the kind of things Tinubu would typically do, call Peter Obi and me and say, ‘Hey, guys, you are my juniors, I’ll support you guys. No 2027 for you,’ Wallahi, I would have agreed, and I would have told Peter Obi to agree, and Atiku would have been the 2027 president of Nigeria if so had happened.
“But once they enter that trance, they tend to see themselves as President,” he said.
The Kaduna-born politician stated that Tinubu did not mind waiting when he offered his party’s presidential platform to politicians, including Atiku in 2007 and the late former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015.
“He (Tinubu) didn’t mind to plan for that long. When in 2007, he gave a platform to Atiku, we knew what he was doing; it was not just the time for the South-West.
“Uncle Tinubu does that a lot; he knows how to tie you with your own rope. ‘You just served eight years as Vice President. You want to come to my party? Please, take my party.’
“And he used it against him in the 2023 elections, because you tell those people that this is the man I gave a platform and he has already promised me that whenever it’s my turn, he will not challenge,” he said.
“That is enough for the deciders to read the judgment that was given. Then in 2011, he gave another; then in 2015, he saw Baba Buhari, and then he calculated that since it is now North for eight years, like I said, he was patient.
“And that patience, those in this group (coalition), except Amaechi, don’t have it. Amaechi seems to have been biding his time, but the real topshot over there, if only he were able to wait, measure, play things out,” he added.
The former vice presidential candidate further stated that he had cautioned the opposition coalition against “excessive excitement,” as Tinubu, who knows the game the coalition is playing, would unscrew every plan by the coalition.
“They didn’t have a Buhari, this coalition. And I told them if you don’t have a decent outlier, people will find it difficult to rally around him. Did they listen to me? They took offence,” he said.
