APC Presidential Profiling on Atiku, Buhari and Kwankaso

The three most prominent APC presidential aspirants have strong profiles politically.

Buhari, 72, is a Fulani-Muslim from Katsina State. He became Nigeria’s military Head of State on December 31, 1983 after coup d’etat that unseated civilian President Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983. He left the position on August 27, 1985 after another coup. He has been active in politics since democracy returned in 1999.

Observers of his political career have described him as a ‘veteran presidential contestant’ for he had contested in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 presidential elections. If he wins the APC primary, 2015 will be his fourth.

In 2003, he ran on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria People’s Party against Olusegun Obasanjo and lost to the PDP candidate. He ran again on the platform of the ANPP, with Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP as his biggest challenger and who he lost to. He left the ANPP in 2010 for the Congress for Progressive Change, where he contested against President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011 and lost.

The CPC and the ANPP had in 2013 merged with other political parties to form the APC, on which platform Buhari now wants to contest in 2015.

For Abubakar, it is similar story. The retired Deputy Director of Customs and Excise, who is almost 68, is also a Fulani from Adamawa State.

In 1991, Abubakar won the governorship primary of the Social Democratic Party in the defunct Gongola State – the state that was later broken into what is today known as Adamawa and Taraba states. He was later disqualified from the contest by the government.

Again in 1992, Atiku in the SDP’s presidential primary and later stepped down for MKO Abiola, the winner – with an unwritten agreement that Abiola would pick Atiku as his running mate. Abiola, however, picked Babagana Kingibe, the runner-up, as his running mate.

In 1998, Abubakar contested and won the governorship election in Adamawa State on the platform of the PDP. He was, however, chosen by Obasanjo, as his running mate – an election they won in 1999. He was the vice-president of the country from 1999 to 2007.

Abubakar was the presidential candidate of the Action Congress (later Action Congress of Nigeria, which became part of today’s APC) in the 2007 election, on which platform he contested against Yar’Adua and Buhari. He came third in the election – after Yar’Adua, the winner and Buhari, the first runner up – with approximately 2.6 million or 7 per cent of total votes. In protest, Abubakar rejected the election results, described it as Nigeria’s “worst election ever” and called for its cancellation.

Again in 2011, after returning to the PDP, he contested against President Jonathan and Sarah Jubril for the party’s presidential ticket and Jonathan won.

Abubakar was part of the breakaway faction of the PDP known as the New PDP. Majority of the aggrieved PDP members, including him, later joined the APC prior to its registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission as a political party.

Kwankwaso is not a political neophyte either. The 58-year-old is from Kano State, also in the North.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in the aborted Third Republic, where he became the Deputy Speaker. He was a member of the Gen. Shehu Yar’adua-led ‘Peoples Front’ faction of the SDP and the Peoples Democratic Movement also led by Yar’adua. He represented Kano at the 1995 Constitutional Conference.

Kwankwaso is one of the founders of the PDP by virtue of his PDM membership, which was one the bodies that formed the ruling party. Today, the governor is being touted as the heir to the of Mallam Aminu Kano’s political dynasty.

He was the Governor of Kano, arguably the second populous state in the country after Lagos, between 1999 and 2003. He contested the 2003-to-2007 tenure and lost to Ibrahim Shekarau (now Minister of Education).

Kwankwaso was re-elected as governor of the state in 2011; his tenure ends in May 2015.