Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. |
Once
again, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its lackluster government
has shown that they are too bereft of knowledge of even the history of the
country, Nigeria whose government it controls in the type of information it
dishes out to the public.
When the news went round that the APC
while presenting its argument at the Presidential Election Tribunal sitting
over the election case brought against it by the opposition, Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said that Atiku
Abubakar is not a Nigerian citizen but a Cameroonian, because he was not born
in Nigeria, I was taken aback. The thought that came to my mind was that has
the ruling party become a children’s party to give such information to a
tribunal whose work is of a public nature, perhaps thinking that the
information would be treated confidentially, and not shared with the public.
It seems that common sense of the APC
delegation or defence team at the tribunal failed them abysmally when they
uttered that travesty. Atiku Abubakar comes from Adamawa State where he has
been Governor-elect before being elevated to the distinguished position of a
Vice President of Nigeria, and a holder of the country’s second highest
national honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).
Adamawa State is the second of the 36
States listed in the First Schedule, section 3 of the 1999 Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria as constituting the component parts of the
Federation of Nigeria. Let’s assume that the top echelon of the party and even
the Presidency were busy thinking of how to inflict more hardship on ordinary Nigerians
by increasing the pump price of fuel, what of the young Turks of the party and
the government who are always on the internet abusing Atiku. It seems that the
internet warriors of the party and government because of the problem of falling
education standard and rabid dislike of Atiku Abubakar whose noble ways
contradict the crude manners for which the APC is known, there were no people
in the party and government sober and educated enough to call the rest to
order. Now, this nonsense about a former Vice President of Nigeria being a
Cameroonian has gone out to the World thereby exposing the deep ignorance and
poor education that characterize the APC people and their government for which
Nigerians are afraid of their remaining in power.
If Atiku Abubakar, a former Vice
President of Nigeria is not a Nigerian citizen as the APC would want us
believe, it means the party has served notice to many leading Nigerians from
Adamawa, Taraba and Borno States, who were not born in Nigeria before independence
to start thinking of where they come from! Among these people are many members
of the APC party like Boss Mustapha, the Secretary to Federal Government and
the Chief of Army Staff, General Buratai and others too numerous to list.
The most laughable aspect of the
presentation of the Area Boys’ Party, the APC at the Presidential Election
Tribunal is that apparently, all the party chiefs, their high officials in the
government and their internet warriors do not know that it is not only by birth
in a country that somebody becomes a citizen of a country. Among the diverse
ways to become a citizen of a country include; naturalization, registration,
presidential decree or grant or when a country acquires territory in which
case, millions of people at once become citizens of another country recognised
under both municipal and international law.
Atiku Abubakar and his generation
including their parents became Nigerian citizens through the last method when
millions of people in the then Northern Camerouns became Nigerian citizens
after a special vote for that purpose, supervised by the defunct United Nations
Trusteeship Council, not INEC, in 1961. Originally a German colony, the British
and French invaded the colony of Cameroun at the outbreak of World War One and
quickly subdued it. They agreed to divide the territory between them. This
division was confirmed by a League of Nations Mandate after the war. They were
referred to as the Northern and Southern Camerouns. Both of them were
administered from the neighbouring colony of Nigeria. In 1954 both parts were
joined to the Nigeria colony. However at independence only the Northern part
remained with Nigeria, the Southern part joined the Republic of Cameroon,
following the same plebiscite of 1961.
It should be noted that the Northern
Cameroons, was neither a colony nor protectorate of Northern Nigeria, but a
mandate of the League of Nations (1922 to 1945) and later, a trusteeship
territory of the United Nations (1945-1961) handed to Britain to administer
after Germany was defeated by the allied forces in the First and the Second
World Wars. At the close of colonisation and the independence of most African
countries, particularly the British colony, Nigeria and the French colony,
Cameroon in 1960, the political future of the Northern Cameroons as an integral
part of Nigeria was actualized by the plebiscite of 1961.
The question now arises as to why did
the APC, the Presidency and their handlers commit this tragic error? Could it
be that they thought that the UN plebiscite is like the elections which they
organize under INEC which are usually inconclusive and hence can be nullified
in a competent Court or they do not know their own country’s history? If it is
the latter, then it is tragic indeed!
Atiku Abubakar, a Man of God by his many
good deeds, was born on November 25, 1945 in Jada local government of Adamawa
State. Atiku Abubakar’s father was from Sokoto state and later travelled to
Borno for farming and trading activities as is the practice among the Fulani
people. Later, his family settled in Jada which is now Jada local Government
of Adamawa State.
After his education, he joined the
Nigeria Customs and worked for 20 years, rising to the position of a Deputy
Director and second-in-command of the para-military outfit. On April 30, 1989,
the law abiding Atiku paid the mandatory three months’ salary and left the
Customs.
Atiku’s political odyssey, triumphs and
failures are entertaining and puts the toga of troublemaker on any person or
group that questions his citizenship. Such nonsense has been done in the past
by mercenary politicians in the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN) during
the second republic, who have resurrected in the APC, when then President, the
late Shehu Shagari was misled by his party hawks to deport to neighbouring
Chad, the then Majority Leader of the Borno State House of Assembly, Alhaji
Shugaba Abdurrahman Darma. The NPN people lied to themselves that Shugaba, a
hard fighting politician and member of the defunct Great Nigeria People’s Party
(GNPP), was not a Nigerian citizen. The Supreme Court eventually quashed the
ill-fated case, following the footsteps of the Maiduguri High Court and the
Federal Court of Appeal, Kaduna.
Atiku’s politics is so profound and
far-reaching that many Nigerians would attest to his willingness to assist both
individuals and political parties in the hours of their need. He has also
fought many political and legal battles to deepen democracy, human rights and
the rule of law as well as engaged in good causes that has improved the lives
of the downtrodden and oppressed peasants in Northern Nigeria.
The ruling APC and President Muhammadu
Buhari have at different times and circumstances benefitted from and eulogized
Atiku. In 2014, the man whom they say is a Camerounian took part and came third
position due to underhand dealings at the presidential convention of the then
fledging All Progressives Congress in Lagos, after APC leaders begged him to
join the newly-formed party.
In fact, for the dangerous falsehood
they unleashed at the Presidential Election Tribunal, and for seeking to
deceive and mislead our people and distort the country’s history thereby laying
foundation for division and civil strife, the APC deserves to be proscribed
while its leaders and its accomplices in the Presidency are deported to Cape
Verde, the adopted home of their National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole!
Louis Okoroma is a Public Affairs
Analyst based in Abuja.
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