Buhari is like the husband who truly loves his wife, and shows it, but just needs to learn to SAY it a bit more, so that people can hear (Granted he is a quiet man, but words also matter, not just action). Atiku on the other hand is the husband who likes boasting and shouting about how he loves his wife, but when you dig behind the words there is nothing to see. In reality he is an uncaring and even abusive husband. Atiku will say the right things – I will restructure, I will privatise, I will unite – but he has no real plans to get any of these done. Stop looking at what he says, look at what he actually does.
Under the Obasanjo/Atiku Watch in 1999-2007, Nigeria was at its most divided: Sharia in the North, OPC in the West, Bakassi Boys in the East, MEND in the Niger Delta, Communal Clashes in the Middle Belt. More people died in those years than in any other period since the civil war (50,000 Nigerians died from communal clashes in Plateau State alone between 2001 and 2004, according to a BBC report from the time). The seeds of Boko Haram, Militancy and Illegal Oil Bunkering were all sown in that era.
Buhari versus Atiku is about two different and competing visions for Nigeria. One is for a Nigeria where hard work and honesty produce reward, where the poor and vulnerable are taken seriously and empowered to build wealth; the other is for a Nigeria where the Big Men and Women take care of themselves and then offer handouts to the Masses.
Atiku’s record is certainly of taking care of himself and his Big Men and Women friends. He ALWAYS helps himself to public funds and assets, for the benefit of himself and his inner circle. As a senior Customs Officer he used his position to establish Intels, and to give it monopolies and advantages that helped earn billions of dollars for him. Twenty years later as Vice President, using fronts, he bought companies he was supposed to help privatise.
He diverted PTDF money to banks owned by his friends and business associates, and then made those banks issue loans, again to friends and partners of his. The EFCC report on it is public. He sent $40 million of looted funds abroad to help establish the American University he opened in Yola. The US Senate Committee and Department of Justice Reports are publicly available. His wife was caught by the US Government collecting bribes on his behalf, from Siemens. Siemens was sanctioned in the US for this. The records are available. Atiku’s past is all you need to know about his future. May God help Nigeria.
