By Sam Omatseye
Atiku Abubakar is not having peace in PDP, what with the Damagum conundrum. So, he has turned elsewhere for succour: The so-called League of Northern Democrats. If you go through the list of its mainstays, you will know it is the voice of Jacob but the hand of Esau. It is not a league, but a smokescreen for one man: Atiku Abubakar.
He has thrown up his façade of followers to give the impression of a new outfit. It’s an old toga dyed anew. It is better named the League of Atiku Democrats. More appropriately, the Smokescreen of Atiku Abubakar. The leader is an Atiku man. His name, Ibrahim Shekarau. He is the man who played coquette in the last election and decided to dump Kwakwanso for Atiku and PDP. His disgrace in Kano still rings through Kofar Mata. Who is the convener? One Dr. Umar Ardo, a historian, who served Atiku as an aide when he was vice president. They have quite a few others, including Namadi Sambo, who pitched his tent with the Adamawa chieftain.
LND is the sort of name Atiku would like because it irradiates his irridentist mantra. We cannot forget his bluster in the last election campaigns when he posed as the northern star and asked Arewa to vote its own in a language of vile hegemony. As proprietary northerner, he said the other candidates should not be considered because they are southerners. LND also has some renegades who are bitter that they have been left out of the APC fruit bowl, like one Emmanuel Jime, a failed gubernatorial candidate who was removed as head of the Shippers Council after half a dozen years in the saddle.
Nigeria has moved beyond you, group slams Atiku
You don’t turn bitterness into a cause. That is becoming a fashion. LND and Atiku are trying to deploy ethnic hubris to pursue personal ambition. Pity.
Culled from The Nation
