The story has been told of how and why presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar left the Nigeria Customs Service some 30 years ago.

Atiku Abubakar

About six weeks to the 2019 presidential election, most Nigerians are probably unaware of the circumstances under which one of the frontrunners, Atiku Abubakar, left his first public service career 30 years ago.

Mr Abubakar is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on which platform he served as vice president between 1999 and 2007. He has also been adopted by about four dozen minor parties under the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), making him the main challenger to President Muhammadu Buhari who is seeking re-election on the ticket of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr Abubakar will be standing in the crucial election almost three decades after he left the then Department of Customs and Excise on April 30, 1989, over his disappointment at being denied the top position in the agency; and the lure of politics.

He had joined the agency as a Cadet Assistant Superintendent on June 30, 1969, a few weeks after taking a diploma in Law at the Institute of Administration of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.

When he joined the Customs at the age of 23 years, he had drawn a graph anticipating his career progression from Cadet to heading the agency by age 40.

“I told myself that if by the time I was 40 years old I did not head the organisation, I would quit,” Mr Abubakar said in his authorised biography, ATIKU: The Story of Atiku Abubakar. The 338-page book was written and published in 2006 by the late Adinoyi Onukaba, who at the time was Mr Abubakar’s Senior Special Assistant on Media.

According to the accounts of Mr Onukaba, who died in 2017 while trying to escape a roadblock by armed robbers in Ondo State, Mr Abubakar’s joining the Customs was fortuitous.

Fortuitous entrance into Customs

It was the period of the Nigerian civil war which broke out in 1967 as an immediate consequence of the first military coup of January 15, 1966, that sacked the Nigerian First Republic and the counter-coup that followed six months later.

“As the war raged on, some radical university students did not feel comfortable with the general indifference of Nigerian students to the unfolding tragedy in the country,” Mr Onukaba stated in the book.

“They began to mobilise their colleagues in support of the war to keep Nigeria one. There were demonstrations by students in support of the Federal Government. From Zaria, Atiku and other students marched to Kaduna to demonstrate against French support for Biafra. Twice they were arrested and detained briefly by the police.

“One day after participating in a protest in front of the French Consulate in Kaduna, Atiku marched off to the headquarters of the First Division of the Nigerian Army in Kaduna to sign up for the war. He told the recruiting officers to take him, that he was ready to go to the war front to fight. The officers took a long look at him and then dismissed him: ‘We are looking for school certificate holders and not undergraduates.’

“Atiku, frustrated and disappointed, headed back to Zaria.

“Before completing his diploma in Law programme in June 1969, a team from the Federal Civil Service Commission came on a recruitment drive to the university. The departure of Ibo from the Federal Civil Service and federal agencies and parastatals had left many vacancies. The team was touring Nigerian universities to interview graduating students interested in filling up such vacant positions.

“Atiku attended the interview. By chance one of the interviewers found in his file a report that he had been found suitable to join the police force and had in fact received some training in 1966. This information 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 Atiku joined the Customs in June 1966.”

READ FULL CONTENT HERE..... LINK ... https://www.afroscandal.com/revealed-inside-story-of-how-and-why-atiku-abubakar-left-nigeria-customs-30-years-ago-throwback-photos/

.........

President in waiting.

celeiyke:
President in waiting.

No where in the world,a fugitive is elected a President

So because he left custome for 30 years we shouldn't vote for him?


I noticed something about politics.


If you wonna indulge in politics you must be very Prudent.

If you ain't careful with ur everyday life, just one single mistake will be used against you.

Afamed:

No where in the world,a fugitive is elected a President

But you and your jobless youths elected a dull, senile, sick and tribalistic coup plotter as a president



You will move with the lifeless dullard to Daura next year... You can serve him very well over there. Nonsense

Metuh:


But you and your jobless youths elected a dull, senile, sick and tribalistic coup plotter as a president



You will move with the lifeless dullard to Daura next year... You can serve him very well over there. Nonsense

keep quiet, fugitive ardent admirer.

Metuh:


But you and your jobless youths elected a dull, senile, sick and tribalistic coup plotter as a president



You will move with the lifeless dullard to Daura next year... You can serve him very well over there. Nonsense

He is everything, but not a fugitive. Big difference!

Afamed:
keep quiet, fugitive ardent admirer.

Shut it, nepotistic and lifeless dullard supporter

ImperialYoruba:

He is everything, but not a fugitive. Big difference!

Same way Atiku is everything but not a tribalist and a dullard.

Do I need to remind you about the worst form of corruption?

Make we fry air?

Atiku's record/case never existed when he was in Apc. Why?