WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ATIKU ABUBAKAR

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ATIKU ABUBAKAR

Meet another Nigerian Political Gladiator, A Formal Deputy Director in Nigeria Customs Service, Formal Governor, Formal Vice President, formal Presidential Candidate.

ATIKU ABUBAKAR is a Nigerian politician, businessman and philanthropist.

1.      He ran for the office of Governor in the Gongola State (now Adamawa and Taraba States) in 1991, and for the Presidency in 1993, placing third after MKO Abiola and Babagana Kingibe in the Social Democratic Party (SDP) primaries.

2.      In 1998 he was elected Governor of Adamawa State. While still Governor-Elect he was selected by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate Olusegun Obasanjo as his running mate. The duo went on to win elections in February 1999, and Abubakar was sworn-in as Nigeria's second democratically elected Vice President on 29 May 1999.

3.      In 2003 Abubakar ran for President on the platform of the Action Congress,

having quit the PDP on account of his issues with President Obasanjo. Atiku lost the election, placing third after Umaru Yar'Adua and Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

4.      Atiku’s first foray into politics was in the early 1980s

5.      Atiku once Says his father wanted him to be Islamic scholar or herdsman

SERVING IN THE CUSTOMS
He once says before completing my Diploma in Law programme in June 1969, a team from the Federal Civil Service Commission came on a recruitment drive to the university. By chance one of the interviewers found in my file a report that I had once been found suitable to join the police force and had in fact received some training in 1966. This in- formation was brought to the attention of the chairman of the interview panel who promptly ruled. “O.k., you go to the Department of Customs and Excise”. That was how I joined the Department of Customs and Excise in June 1969. The invisible hand that has always shaped my life had once again steered me towards my destiny.
After my training at the Police College in Ikeja, Lagos and at the Customs Training School in Ebute Metta in Lagos, I was posted to Idi Iroko border station. My colleagues and I were tasked with collecting duties on imported and exported goods, stop- ping the entry and exit of banned items, and arresting and prosecuting smugglers.

6.      Guess who Atiku Admires

He says I admired General Muhammed and tried to promote the same values and attitudinal change in our office. I was nick-named “Murtala Muhammed Junior” by my Customs subordinates in Ibadan because they said I was behaving like him. Although I was second-in-command in Ibadan, I used to order late-comers to be locked out of their offices.

7.      He talked about the death of his mother A few months before my mother’s death, He says  soldiers had overthrown the civilian administration of Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983. Major-General Muhammadu Buhari became the new Head of State. As part of its monetary policies, the Buhari government had introduced new Naira notes in April 1984.

8.      A PASSION FOR LEARNING
I have always had a passion for education. In 1988, my second wife, Ladi and I registered a limited liability company called ABTI-ZARHAM (formed from the first letters of the names of our children: Abba and Atiku Jnr  = ABTI and Zainab, Rukaiya, Hauwa and Maryam = ZARHAM). We established ABTI Nursery and Primary School in Yola in 1992.

9.      We later set up ABTI Academy, an elite high school with boarding facilities modeled after the British public school. It was followed by ABTI-American University (now American University of Nigeria, Yola). It provides American-style university education to students. Nothing gives me more joy and fulfillment in life than my modest contributions to the improvement of education in Nigeria.

 

 

 

EARLY LIFE

Atiku Abubakar was born to an itinerant Fulani trader and farmer Garba Abubakar, and his second wife, Aisha Kande, in Jada village in what is today Adamawa State. He was named for his paternal grandfather, Atiku Abdulkadir. An older sister died in infancy, making Atiku the only child of his parents who divorced before his father's death by drowning in 1957. Atiku's early years were spent in Kojoli, 30 kilometres east of Jada. His mother later remarried. She died of a heart attack in 1984.

EDUCATION

Like many of his generation, Atiku's father was opposed to the idea of Western education, and tried to keep Atiku out of the traditional school system. When the government discovered that Atiku was not attending mandatory schooling his father spent a few days in jail until Aisha Kande's mother paid the fine.
At the age of eight Atiku enrolled in the Jada Primary School where he performed well. In 1960, he was admitted to the prestigious Adamawa Provincial Secondary School in Yola where he did well in English Language and Literature, struggled with Physics and Chemistry and Mathematics. He graduated with a Grade Three WASC/GCE Certificate in 1965.
Following secondary school, Atiku studied a short while at the Nigeria Police College in Kaduna. He left the College when he was unable to present an O-Level Mathematics result.^[2] He worked briefly as a Tax Officer in the regional Ministry of Finance, from where he gained admission to the School of Hygiene in Kano in 1966.
He graduated with a Diploma in 1967, having served as Interim Student Union President at the School. In 1967 he enrolled for a Law Diploma at the Ahmadu Bello University Institute of Administration, on a scholarship from regional government. After graduation in 1969, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was employed by the Nigeria Customs Service.

MARRIAGES AND FAMILY

While at Idi-Iroko Atiku met nineteen-year-old Titilayo Albert, who he secretly married in December 1971, in Lagos, because her family was initially opposed to the union. On 26 October 1972, Titilayo (affectionately called 'Titi') delivered a baby girl they named Fatima. She later gave birth to Adamu, Halima and Aminu.
In January 1979 he married Ladi Yakubu as his second wife. "I wanted to expand the Abubakar family. I felt extremely lonely as a child. I had no brother and no sister. I did not want my children to be as lonely as I was. This is why I married more than one wife. My wives are my sisters, my friends, and my advisers and they complement one another," Abubakar has said.^[3] He has six children with Ladi: Abba, Atiku, Zainab, Ummi-Hauwa, Maryam and Rukayatu.
In 1983 he married his third wife, Princess Rukaiyatu, daughter of the late Lamido of Adamawa. She gave birth to AIsha, Hadiza, Aliyu (named after her late father), Asmau, Mustafa, Laila and Abdulsalam. His fourth wife, Fatima Shettima, followed in 1986. Fatima gave birth to her first child Amina (Meena), Mohammed and two sets of twins Ahmed and Shehu, Zainab and Aisha then her last daughter Hafsat.
Abubakar later divorced Ladi, allowing him to marry, as his fourth wife (the maximum permitted him as a Muslim), Jennifer Iwenjora, who then became Jamila Atiku-Abubakar. Jennifer gave birth to Abdulmalik, Zara and his youngest child, Faisal.

POLITICS

POLITICAL LIFE
Meeting Yar’Adua
While in my office one day, I was informed that Shehu Musa Yar’Adua, the retired Major-General and former deputy to Obasanjo, was waiting to see me. Yar’Adua wanted a license to import beans from Niger Republic for sale in Nigeria.  I told him that he would have to write an application to President Ibrahim Babangida for the license. Yar’Adua thanked me and left.
Babangida approved his application. Yar’Adua imported the beans from Niger Republic, sold them and made good money. He felt he needed to show appreciation to me for assisting him. I was happy to see him again when he visited me and happier still to know that his business had gone well.
He offered me a token of appreciation, but I declined, saying it was unnecessary.  I was just doing my job.  Yar’Adua was highly impressed. In an organization known for its endemic corruption and unethical deals, he was happy to find one decent officer. From that day, a friendship developed between us.
Going into politics
When I joined the Customs 20 years earlier, I had drawn a graph anticipating my career progression from Cadet to Director of Customs by age 40. I told myself that if by the time I was 40 years old I did not head the organization, I would quit.
I retired at 43 as a Deputy Director on April 30, 1989. I paid the mandatory three months salary in lieu of notice to government.
A year before my retirement, I had started attending political meetings at Shehu Yar’Adua’s house in Ikoyi, Lagos.