Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo with his vice, Atiku Abubakar
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.
