•How He Plans To Get The PDP Ticket
+Details Of His Plan B Revealed!
It’s no longer news that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (GCON) will be contesting for Presidency in 2027. He did the last time but failed. This time around he believes his chances are bright.
He plans to contest on the platform of PDP. He plans to get the PDP ticket.
But many political analysts say his chances are slim, going by the huge opposition to his candidacy.
Many PDP topshots believe he should not be the flagbearer of the party. They prefer a different person who is fresh.
Thosoe from the South believe that a Southern candidate is more preferable, to enable the South complete its 2 terms.
All these sentiments are being openly canvassed by stakeholders in the party.
Even the young members of the party prefer that a younger aspirant be fielded.
Some of the serving PDP governors don’t seem to support his candidacy. They recently had a meeting in Ibadan, Oyo State where they rejected the concept of Coalition, which Atiku & some other popular politicians like Mallam El-Rufai are rooting for.
But his biggest challenge is coming from the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike who does not even want to hear any talk of Atiku getting the PDP presidential ticket.
He is Atiku’s biggest problem because he was the one who put together the G5, made up of governors, who worked against Atiku last election.
They are determined to do same at the forthcoming elections.
How Atiku plans to get the PDP ticket being a Northern aspirant, when the view of many is that it would be better to have a Southern aspirant emerge, remains to be seen.
Chief Bode George, a founding father and Elder of the party has come out openly to say over his dead body will Atiku emerge as PDP’s presidential candidate.
A member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, says the party will meet its end if former Vice President Atiku Abubakar secures the party’s 2027 presidential ticket.
“If he (Atiku) picks it (PDP’s ticket), that is the end of this party. If he picks it by manipulation which was what was done the last time, we will not accept it,” Bode George said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday, April 14.
Atiku has been in a race to become Nigeria’s president for over three decades and has been the presidential candidate of different parties six times.
Atiku recently championed an inter-party alliance that birthed a coalition on Thursday, March 20, 2025. Atiku, alongside former Anambra Governor Peter Obi, ex-Kaduna governor Nasir El-Rufai, amongst others, announced the coalition as an attempt to oust incumbent President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
However, in a twist, PDP governors on Monday, April 14, 2025, rejected the coalition spearheaded by Atiku, ruling out any plan by the party for mergers or coalition. Speaking during the television programme on Monday, Bode George applauded the PDP governors for rejecting the coalition led by Atiku.
George said Atiku has not shown himself to be a leader of the party because he has not waded into the intra-party squabbles that have befallen the party in recent times.
Bode George said: “No, if he is the leader of the party, he would have waded into it (the crisis). “The fact that he was the presidential candidate of the party at the last election doesn’t mean he is a bonafide, fixated leader of the party. If he’s running for his private interest, it’s different from the interest of the party.”
Asked whether Atiku could be the flag bearer of the PDP in 2027, the PDP chieftain said, “He cannot be. This is what I am saying. There was 8 years in the North, there should be 8 years in the South. That is the dictate, that is the doctrine of the PDP. I can’t say he cannot contest; he can go to any party because it is his constitutional right but as far as we are concerned, he cannot be the candidate.”
“There are rules. Section 7, Sub-section 3C of our constitution. It states that once the presidential candidate has been in the South for eight years, it had to go to the North. And after another 8 years, it would come to the South. Is Atiku from the South-West, South-South or South-East?” George asked.
The PDP chieftain said he equally doesn’t want Tinubu to be re-elected in 2027, adding that he wants his party to win the next election with a southern candidate.
He is not the only one. Many Southern big wigs are opposed to Atiku’s choice.
Atiku himself is aware of this. And he actually has a Plan B.
There are those who have hinted that Atiku’s Plan B is to decamp to the SDP if he can’t get the PDP presidential ticket. He is said to have a collaborative relationship with the likes of Mallam El-Rufai, who many believe is holding forte for him. Some have gone ahead to suggest that when the time comes he is most likely going to be the place holder for Atiku in SDP. This is because Atiku and El-Rufai are working together towards the same goal of making sure Atiku becomes the next President of Nigeria.
As it is nobody can convince Atiku not to run. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar believes he is eminently qualified for the job. He has paid his dues. Lets’s tell yoy his story. Atiku Abubakar served as the Vice President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo. He ran for the office of Governor of Adamawa State in 1990 and 1996 unsuccessfully, but won in 1998.
Before he was sworn in, he was selected as running mate to former military leader, Olusegun Obasanjo, during the 1999 presidential election and was re-elected in 2003.
Atiku Abubakar has contested unsuccessfully for the President of Nigeria 6 times, in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023. He ran in the Social Democratic Party presidential primaries in 1993, but lost to Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe. 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 People’s Democratic Party during the 2011 presidential election losing out to incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2014, he joined the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2015 presidential election and contested the presidential primaries losing to Muhammadu Buhari. In 2017, he returned to the Peoples Democratic Party and was the party presidential candidate during the 2019 presidential election, again losing to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.
In May 2022, he was chosen as the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate again, this time for the 2023 general election after he defeated Nyesom Wike, the former Governor of Rivers State, at the primaries. He came in second in the general election, being defeated by Bola Tinubu, though Abubakar joined other opposition candidates in demanding a revote.
Atiku Abubakar is a Fulani 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 who hails from Wurno, Sokoto State and migrated to Kojoli village at Jada, Adamawa State, his maternal grandfather called Inuwa Dutse migrated to Jada, Adamawa State from Dutse, Jigawa State he 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
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 8, 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 Examination.
Following secondary school, Abubakar studied for 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 Ahmadu Bello University Institute of Administration, on a scholarship from the regional government. After graduating in 1969, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was employed by the Nigerian Customs Service.
In 2021, Abubakar successfully completed and passed his Master’s degree in International Relations at Anglia Ruskin University.
Abubakar worked in the Nigeria Customs Service for 20 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. He 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. “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 (AUN), the first American-style private university to be established in Sub-Saharan Africa. He retired in April 1989 and took up full-time business and politics.
Conflict of interest accusations has since trailed him on account of his involvement in business while a civil servant, who exercised supervisory authority. On his part, Abubakar has defended the decision, saying his involvement was limited to the ownership of shares (which government rules permitted), and that he was not involved in the day-to-day running of the business. His company NICOTES would later be rebranded into INTELS and would later go on to feature prominently in accusations of money laundering levelled against n Abubakar by the U.S. government during his vice presidency.
Abubakar’s first foray into Politics was in the early 1980s, when he worked behind-the-scene 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 Headquarters 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 People’s Front of Nigeria. The People’s Front included politicians such as Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Baba Gana Kingibe, Bola Tinubu, Sabo Bakin Zuwo, Rabiu Kwankwaso, Abdullahi Aliyu Sumaila and Abubakar Koko.
In 1989, Abubakar was elected the National Vice-Chairman of the Peoples Front of Nigeria in the build-up to the Third Nigerian 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 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 2– 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 1993, Abubakar contested the SDP presidential primaries. The results after the first ballot of the primaries held in Jos was: 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-presidential running mate, in the June 12 presidential election.
After the 12 June and during the General Sani Abacha transition, Abubakar showed interest to contest for the Gubnetorial seat of Adamawa State 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.
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 Privatization, overseeing the sale of hundreds of loss-making and poorly managed public enterprises alongside Nasir El Rufai.
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 (Third Term Agenda).
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”.
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 August 2013, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) registered two new political parties. One of them was the Peoples Democratic Movement. Local media reports suggested that the party was formed by Abubakar as a back-up plan in case he was unable to fulfil his rumoured 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.
On 2 February 2014, Abubakar once again left the Peoples Democratic Party and became a founding member All Progressives Congress, 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 grant amnesty to looters and he vowed to privatize 90% of NNPC, Nigeria’s primary source of income. Atiku took his campaigns to Katsina, visit Emir of Daura on 7 February 2019 On 27 February 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 Abubakar emerged as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for 2023 election after he defeated 12 other candidates in a keenly contested presidential primary held at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja on 28 May 2022. Of the 767 accredited ballots at the election, he polled 371 votes while his closest challenger, Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, came second with 237 votes. Nigeria’s former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, scored 70 votes to come a distant third while Governor of Akwa Ibom, Udom Emmanuel, came fourth with 38 votes..
