Let me be honest. For most of my life, Atiku Abubakar was just another name floating around in Nigerian politics. I knew he was once Vice President. I knew he kept contesting. I knew people called him all sorts of names. And to be fair, I didn’t care. Nigerian politics has always been noisy, and I had better things to do, like finding stable light to charge my phone.
But then 2023 happened. Tinubu took over from Buhari, and Nigerians braced themselves, hoping things would get better. Instead, they got worse. Fuel subsidy was removed overnight without a proper plan. Naira collapsed like a pack of cards. Food prices went wild. Electricity bills tripled. People’s salaries suddenly felt like transport stipends. For the first time in my life, I started to understand what it meant when people said “this country is choking us.”
And that’s when I asked myself the hard question: who has been consistently talking about solutions, not just slogans? That’s when I started paying attention to Atiku.
Restructuring: The Debate Nigeria Pretends It Doesn’t Need
One of the first things that caught my eye was Atiku’s obsession with restructuring. Now, if you’ve lived in Nigeria long enough, you know “restructuring” is that one word politicians fear. They dodge it, twist it, or reduce it to empty grammar.
But Atiku? He’s been banging that drum since the early 2000s. His point is simple: Nigeria is too big and too diverse to be controlled from one office in Abuja. States need more power—not just to say “we’re federating” on paper, but to actually manage their resources, run their police, and drive their own development.
Think about it. Why should Lagos be begging Abuja before it can fully run its ports? Why should Kano wait for federal blessing before it can aggressively invest in agriculture? Why should a state university grind to a halt because Abuja didn’t release allocations on time?
Atiku’s argument is that if states have more control, they’ll be forced to compete. Some will fail, yes. But others will rise, innovate, and drag the rest forward. That’s how real federations work. And honestly, in 2025—with hunger biting and insecurity spreading—it makes even more sense than ever.
Privatization: The Controversial Legacy
Then there’s privatization. This one divides people. Some praise it, some curse it. But let’s be honest: before Atiku’s push for reforms, Nigeria’s telecoms sector was basically NITEL. If you wanted a phone line, you could wait years. Today, you’re probably reading this on a smartphone connected to MTN, Airtel, or Glo. That didn’t just fall from heaven. It was privatization.
Was it perfect? No. Some deals were messy. But imagine Nigeria today without private telecoms. Imagine still queuing at NITEL office in 2025 just to “apply” for a landline while the rest of the world is on 6G.
Atiku’s point then is the same now: government has no business running businesses. Look at power today—still epileptic because government is half-in, half-out. He says subsidy must go, but unlike what APC did, his idea is to create buffers and private-sector efficiency, not just yank the cord and leave citizens stranded. Love him or hate him, at least the man has receipts.
Education: Breaking the Strike Cycle
If you’ve ever been in a Nigerian university, you have an ASUU strike story. In fact, some people measure their degree by how many times ASUU delayed it. We’ve normalized dysfunction so much that “extra year” isn’t always because of carryovers—it’s because “ASUU carried me.”
Atiku’s position has been clear: you can’t build a 21st-century economy if your universities are permanently on pause. He has pushed for funding, autonomy, and policies that give lecturers fewer reasons to strike. And beyond speeches, he has his own test case—American University of Nigeria (AUN) in Yola. It runs like a proper university, not like a glorified waiting room for strike announcements.
You may not agree with everything he says, but how many politicians actually build and run functioning schools rather than just cutting ribbons?
National Unity: The Unpopular Commitment
And then there’s his stand on national unity. It sounds cliché, I know. But in today’s Nigeria, where politicians exploit ethnicity and religion to grab power, his insistence on fairness and restructuring is not small talk.
He’s a northerner, but one of the few openly saying Nigeria cannot survive on a winner-takes-all game. That if we keep pretending Abuja can lord over 200 million people, the country will keep tearing at the seams. That unity must be built on justice, not force.
Look at Nigeria today—fractured, suspicious, angry. That message is more relevant than ever.
So Why Does This Matter?
Here’s the truth: I didn’t set out to become an Atiku fan. I just wanted APC out. But in reading up on him, I started noticing something rare in Nigerian politics: consistency. On restructuring. On privatization. On education. On unity.
Meanwhile, look at Nigeria since 2023—naira in free fall, inflation choking families, youths leaving in droves, insecurity worsening. APC promised “renewed hope,” but what we got is renewed hardship.
So when people ask me, “Why Atiku?” my answer is simple. I wasn’t even looking for him. But once I paid attention, I couldn’t ignore the files.
In a country where politicians bend whichever way the wind blows, finding someone who has been saying the same things for 20 years is… refreshing. You don’t have to agree with everything, but you can’t deny this: Nigeria needs a steady hand, not more experiments.