How I contested guber election four times before winning in 1999, by Atiku

By Folorunso Alagbede, Abuja

Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar said yesterday that he contested for the governorship position four different times before he finally won it in 1999.

Atiku was elected Governor of Adamawa State in 1999 on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

He was however chosen as the Vice Presidential candidate of the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, even before he could be sworn-in.

The former Vice President made this revelation on Tuesday while having an interaction with leaders of his support groups from across the country in Abuja.

Addressing the leaders of the groups, Atiku said that he was delighted that more young people are participating in politics today and that it is his dream to mentor the young generation and handover his political structure to them.

According to him, “it is encouraging that these days I see many young people come to me declaring intentions to run for various political positions, some state assemblies, some national assembly and even some aspiring to be governors.

“The beautiful thing is that this shows that our democracy is being strengthened. 

“I also started early like many of you. I started in my late 30s. During our time, our direction was to fight the military and return the country to civil rule. 

“In joining politics, you have to be focused, principled and courageous. 

“For example, I contested for the governorship position four times before I was finally elected. That is politics for you. You have to be determined and be courageous”, he said.

Atiku expressed gratitude to leaders of the support groups for the roles that they played during the 2018-19 election and commended the groups for their discipline and their determination to be better organized than the last outing. 

He said, “ that we are more organized now is a reflection of the fact that we are now more experienced and with experience comes more knowledge and what that means is that if there was any mistake that we made last time, we are in a better position to avoid such mistakes now”.