Where Atiku Abubakar Made Mistake and How it Cost Him the Election
By eeetuk

Atiku Abubakar election loss in 2023 Nigerian presidential election —which saw Mr. Bola Tinubu declared a winner, has himself to blame for many reasons.

First, on February 25, 2023, Mr. Atiku Abubakar went to a gun fight with a knife---leading to his defeat. The gun in this case was the research that Atiku campaign did not do, and Bola Tinubu campaign did---identifying what the constitution required to win presidential election. Research is a key weapon in a political campaign to win an election. Had Atiku campaign done good research, it would have discovered three things required in the 1999 of constitution of Nigeria to be elected president and focused on them. In the word of 1999 constitution of Nigeria, to be elected president of Nigeria, you must achieve the following: (1) he has a majority of votes cast at the election; and (2)
he has not less than one-quarter of the votes cast at the election in each of at least two-thirds of all the States in the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Why didn’t Atiku Abubakar focus his campaign in states with large population centers, target some states and put resources to achieve them? It was a big-time blunder in campaign strategy.

In addition, Atiku Abubakar lost his election in part because his campaign did not focus on those areas that would have tipped the victory to his campaign. Bola Tinubu put a lot of resources in Southwest geopolitical zone and other targeted states in the Northern Nigeria----leading him to win majority of popular votes, win 25% of votes in more than 24 states and the federal capital. And he did it perfectly.


Second, Atiku Abubakar ignored significant evidence--- which suggested sham election was going to be in play in general election. If you are reading this, I urge you to go back to 2022 APC primary campaign election to select the nominee for the party. When things were heating up and words came out that President Buhari was going to endorse someone else other than Bola Tinubu, what did Bola Tinubu do? Mr. Tinubu went on offense by revealing that he and President Buhari had an agreement, whereby president would rule for 8 years and turnover the presidency to him, Mr. Tinubu. That revelation—signals sham election was going to be part of election. Boy, it happened. From what we knew so far about the election and reported in Nigerian media, no election took place in most part of Nigeria. Mary beth Leonard is a US Ambassador in Nigeria. On Sunday 5, 2023 article in Nigerian tribune Newspaper titled “February 25 election failed to meet Nigerians’ expectations – US Ambassador”, Ambassador Leonard argued that February 25 presidential election in Nigeria failed to meet Nigerians expectations. Who can disagree with that? Not me. She was on the ground when the presidential election took in Nigeria. And another source which corroborated Ambassador Leonard claim came from one of EU members who observed the election and argued that 2023 presidential election was tempered with in ways that compromised the outcomes of the election.

Third, PDP and Atiku Abubakar relied too much on the promise by INEC chairman that the use of BVAS—Bi-Modal voter accreditation system will prevent voter fraud. No, BVAS did not prevent voter fraud in 2023 presidential election. Instead, BVAS increased voter fraud by discouraging older people not to come out to vote and allowing INEC officials to manipulate data uploaded to INEC server. One good example is the report by election observers that only 35% of registered voters came out to vote. Amazing that. Because turnout was low, APC and other smaller political parties benefited from the election outcomes.

Upcoming governorship election on March 11, 2023 is going to produce exact results Nigerian people saw on February 25, 2023—a sham election results. PDP, unfortunately is going to rely on BVAS to win that election. It is not going to happen because APC have already mastered the plan to rig it again. Low voters’ turnout is going to favor a party that knows how to rig—and that is APC.

Atifku lost his election majorly because the south his base was not with him. SS and SE left him since he hijacked the southern turn.