By Hon. Seye Oladejo, Lagos APC Spokesman.
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has announced that 2027 will be his final presidential outing. In his own words, this is his “last attempt” at the presidency.
That admission provides an important lens through which Nigerians should examine the increasingly frantic political manoeuvres surrounding his latest bid.
There is nothing wrong with ambition. There is nothing wrong with contesting an election. But when a politician describes a particular election as his final opportunity to achieve a lifelong ambition, Nigerians are entitled to examine whether the campaign is being driven principally by a compelling national agenda or by the urgency of one man’s political endgame.
And increasingly, the signs point to the latter.
THE IMAGE-LAUNDERING OPERATION
One of the more revealing developments is Atiku’s decision to engage Kenneth Okonkwo as his 2027 campaign spokesperson.
Mr Okonkwo is certainly entitled to change political allegiance and Nigerians are entitled to change their minds. As a matter of fact, he’s entitled to a political coat of many colours. But the political irony is difficult to miss.
In 2023, while serving as a spokesperson for Peter Obi’s Labour Party campaign, Okonkwo publicly made severe criticisms of Atiku. In 2026, the same political actor was appointed Atiku’s official spokesperson for the 2027 presidential campaign.
That extraordinary political turnaround raises legitimate questions about the campaign’s communications strategy.
Is the objective simply to communicate policy, or is it also to provide an aggressive reputational makeover for a candidate whose political history and previous presidential campaigns remain part of the public record?
The irony becomes even more striking when considered alongside Atiku’s reported engagement of a Washington-based lobbying firm. A U.S. Department of Justice filing reportedly stated that the engagement included efforts to strengthen Atiku’s reputational standing among U.S. policymakers and counter narratives from the Nigerian government.
So, from international lobbying to domestic political messaging, there appears to be a considerable investment in managing the Atiku narrative.
But image management cannot substitute for a record.
No amount of political cosmetics can erase history, and no communications strategy can permanently disguise contradictions in policy positions.
THE OBASANJO ALBATROSS
Perhaps the most enduring difficulty confronting Atiku’s attempt at political reinvention is his own record in government and the unresolved historical shadow cast by his eight years as Vice President under President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Atiku served as Vice President from 1999 to 2007, with significant responsibilities including the National Council on Privatisation and economic policy. His tenure was subsequently overshadowed by a bitter political rupture with his principal, culminating in the acrimonious battles of the Obasanjo second term.
President Obasanjo’s subsequent account of that relationship in My Watch was extraordinarily critical. He accused his former deputy of disloyalty, poor judgement and other serious failings, while the political relationship between the two men deteriorated into one of the most consequential personal and political battles of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic.
It is important to state clearly that those were Obasanjo’s allegations and assessments, not judicial findings.
But the larger point remains: the political record of the Obasanjo-Atiku years cannot simply be airbrushed out of the 2027 conversation.
The controversies surrounding Atiku’s stewardship of economic portfolios, the PTDF affair, privatisation and his eventual confrontation with his principal remain part of the historical record and deserve to be examined alongside his claims of experience and competence.
Indeed, the extraordinary fact that, in August 2026, Obasanjo again publicly described his decision to select Atiku as his running mate in 1999 as the “biggest mistake” of his presidency demonstrates that the old political rupture remains relevant to the public discourse.
Atiku cannot ask Nigerians to celebrate his long experience in public service while simultaneously asking them to forget the controversies and institutional battles that accompanied that experience.
Experience is not merely the number of years spent in office. It is also the record those years leave behind.
FROM SUBSIDY REMOVAL TO “I WILL RESTORE IT!”
Perhaps nowhere is the desperation for a fresh political narrative more evident than in Atiku’s dramatic turnaround on petrol subsidy.
This is the same Atiku who, during the 2023 campaign, argued that petrol subsidy was unsustainable and pledged to complete its removal if elected.
Today, the same candidate is declaring emphatically:
“I will restore it!”
The political attraction of that message is obvious.
Nigerians are experiencing economic pressures. Transport costs matter. Food prices matter. Household purchasing power matters. Any politician who promises cheaper fuel and cheaper transportation can expect that message to resonate.
But governance is not a popularity contest.
The critical question is not whether Nigerians want lower prices. Of course they do.
The question is how the government will sustainably achieve those lower prices without recreating the fiscal leakages, distortions, smuggling incentives and opaque practices associated with the old subsidy regime.
Atiku therefore owes Nigerians more than attractive slogans.
He owes them the arithmetic.
Where will the money come from?
How much will government spend?
Who qualifies?
For how long?
How will the scheme be insulated from arbitrage and corruption?
How will the policy work within the Petroleum Industry Act?
And what happens when the temporary intervention becomes politically difficult to remove?
These are governance questions, not campaign questions.
POPULISM IS NOT POLICY
There is a fundamental difference between identifying genuine hardship and offering a sustainable solution to it.
The hardship is real.
The policy questions are real.
But promising to reverse difficult reforms because they have become politically unpopular is not necessarily a substitute for presenting a comprehensive economic alternative.
Atiku’s proposed return to subsidy therefore requires much more than a politically attractive declaration. It requires a transparent explanation of the fiscal implications, implementation mechanism and long-term sustainability.
A presidential campaign cannot run on nostalgia for cheaper petrol without explaining who will pay the bill.
RUNNING DOWN TINUBU IS NOT A DEVELOPMENT AGENDA
There is also an increasingly noticeable feature of the Atiku campaign: an intense focus on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Opposition politicians are expected to scrutinise the government. That is part of democracy.
But there is a point at which opposition to a person must give way to proposition for a country.
Nigerians deserve to know what Atiku intends to build-not merely what he intends to attack.
They deserve specifics on the economy, security, industrialisation, education, healthcare, infrastructure and institutional reform.
The presidency should not be reduced to a referendum on Bola Tinubu’s personality.
A NEW PLATFORM DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY MEAN A NEW POLITICAL IDEA
Atiku’s journey to 2027 has also taken him from the PDP to the ADC, where he now heads a ticket with former Rivers State Governor and former Transportation Minister Rotimi Amaechi.
But changing political platforms does not automatically amount to changing political ideas.
Nigeria has seen enough political realignments to know that new party labels do not necessarily produce new solutions.
The electorate must therefore interrogate the substance beneath the branding.
What has changed?
What has been learnt?
What is genuinely different?
And why should Nigerians believe that the same political establishment, operating under another party platform, will deliver a fundamentally different outcome?
THE LAST DANCE CANNOT BECOME NIGERIA’S NATIONAL AGENDA
Atiku may call 2027 his last dance.
But Nigeria cannot afford to make the election about one man’s final opportunity.
The presidency of Nigeria is not a consolation prize for political longevity. It is not a lifetime achievement award. And the country’s economic and security challenges cannot be solved by slogans, image management or convenient policy reversals.
Atiku’s final presidential attempt should therefore be subjected to the same standard as every other political project:
Show us the plan. Show us the numbers. Show us the record. Show us what is different.
The APC will defend its record and its agenda before Nigerians.
The opposition is free to challenge the government.
But Nigerians are equally free to ask hard questions.
And the most important question for Atiku in 2027 may ultimately be very simple:
Is this truly a new national project-or simply an old presidential ambition having one last dance?
