Atiku: Ambition, Age and Agility, by Emmanuel Aziken

For Atiku Abubakar, the path to 2027 may have just met a rare stumble arising from aclumsy interview.

In a BBC Hausa Service interview, Atiku — who turns 79 next month — was quoted as saying he would be willing to step down for a younger aspirant, if such a candidate emerged and commanded widespread acceptability.

The remark —brief, conditional, and arguably reflective — was all the ammunition the media needed. Within hours, leading newspapers and online platforms seized the soundbite, splashing headlines of Atiku’s supposed political retreat across front pages and timelines.

Indeed, within hours of the interview, the Atiku close circle of strategists and loyalists, convened and declared the BBC story a misrepresentation. They insisted their principal had been quoted out of context, stressing that Atiku remains resolute and ready to contest — not concede — the 2027 presidential race.

But the genie was already out of the bottle.

For the first time, Atiku Abubakar, the man long touted as Nigeria’s most prepared president-in-waiting, had inadvertently invited the nation to revisit a question his handlers have carefully sidestepped: is age finally catching up with the Wazirin Adamawa?

The Man Who Once Had Nigeria Figured Out

No one doubts Atiku’s resume. Among Nigeria’s post-1999 elite, few carry a broader governance blueprint or national network. As Vice President between 1999 and 2007, Atiku carved a reputation for policy depth, reform-mindedness, and institutional vision.

Your correspondent remembers his National Development Project (NDP) — a Non-Governmental Organisation led by Dr. Usman Bugaje. It was a policy think hub churning outideas on economic diversification, education reform, and constitutional restructuring. For many, the NDP symbolized Atiku’s cerebral approach to power.

But in politics, ideas alone are never neutral.

His boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, saw the NDP not as a policy incubator but a political launchpad — a shadow campaign office preparing for an Atiku presidency. The friction that followed defined their eventual split and hardened Atiku’s image as the restless heir denied his inheritance.

The Nationalist Without Borders

 Beyond policy, Atiku’s personal life and business reach projected a cosmopolitan identity rare among Nigeria’s power elite. A Fulani Muslim from Adamawa, Atiku has consistently challenged ethnic and religious pigeonholes.

He famously married outside his region and faith — first to Titi Abubakar, a Yoruba Christian, and later to the Igbo born former NTA reporter turned academic, Jennifer(or Jamila), further cementing his cross-cultural appeal.

For years, this pan-Nigerian profile strengthened Atiku’s claim to national leadership: a politician “blind” to tribe and guided by technocratic instinct.

Yet, as Nigeria’s politics increasingly tilt toward youthful energy and digital populism, the elder statesman’s once-endearing broadness is being tested against new-generation impatience.

Age, Health, and the Buhari-Tinubu Burden

It is not Atiku’s intellect that troubles Nigerians — it is his calendar age.

After two successive presidencies under septuagenarian leaders — Buhari and Tinubu —Nigerians have grown wary of elderly presidents who appear more at home abroad on medical vacations than on local tours.

President Buhari’s tenure was marred by extended hospital stays in London. President Tinubu, though only a year younger than Atiku, has faced persistent questions over fitness and endurance, amplified by limited public appearances and long absences.

Many now believe that leadership stamina — not just strategy — is Nigeria’s foremost electoral criterion.

And for Atiku, no matter how brilliant his mind, his 79 candles may prove harder to extinguish in the court of public opinion than any BBC misquote.

A poll by the online newspaper, GWG.ng immediately after Atiku’s BBC interview came out asked respondents if there was any acceptable aspirant younger than Atiku presently in the race. 83% of respondents said that was at least one.

That should resonate with the Atiku’s camp that irrespective of its assertions that many people are now beginning to think less of the former vice-president.

 Atiku’s Counter argument: Experience Trumps Age

Still, within the Atiku school of thought, there is confidence — almost defiance. His strategists argue that no other opposition figure possesses the machinery, resources, and regional clout to dismantle Tinubu’s APC fortress.

Their thesisis simple: Only Atiku can galvanise the North, attract moderate southern blocs, and checkmate Tinubu in a contest of equals. They contend that his formidable northern network would make vote-rigging impossible in 2027, insisting that ”with Atiku on the ballot, the North will stand guard.”

To them, the age question is a distraction, not a disqualification.

 But critics believe otherwise. They argue that the search for a younger, credible torchbearer is not betrayal but necessity. The danger, they warn, lies in repeating the Buhari-Tinubu cycle — where charisma and cults of personality eclipse generational renewal.

The speed with which Atiku’s team retracted the BBC story reflects more than PR damage control — it betrays a fear that the succession debate could fracture his movement before it begins.

 In politics, to blink is to bleed. And in that brief BBC moment, Atiku appeared to blink —acknowledging, however faintly, that time may be ticking faster than ambition.

Yet, in the eyes of his followers, the Waziri remains their indispensable gladiator, the only man with the scars, funds, and federation-wide footprint to unseat a fellow veteran in Tinubu.

 Whether that loyalty translates into national patience is another matter.

Nigeria has twice gambled on elder statesmen promising reform — and twice emerged disillusioned.

If Atiku presses on toward 2027, his challenge will not merely be defeating Tinubu — but convincing a weary nation that old age no longer equals old answers.

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