By Michael Ose George
Atiku’s problem and why he has suffered electoral defeats for years despite his popularity is simply because he’s not grounded. He’s too far from the grassroots. He’s elitist and he has shown this over and over again by not connecting to the masses.
He keeps himself within his circle of fellow elitists and tries to politically feed from them. He uses them as his source of connection to the masses but that’s never enough. He tries to connect to the masses using proxies but still never enough.
In 2019, Atiku narrowly beat Buhari in Adamawa State by 3% despite Adamawa being Atiku’s home state. On the other hand Buhari beat Atiku by over 50% in Kastina State. This paints a picture of how he’s seen by even his own people and he has a lot to do to change his fortunes at home and elsewhere.
It’s never enough to leave Nigeria immediately after an election, abandon your followers and supporters and show up two years before elections in a seismic form. You have to be on ground. Connect with the electorate. Don’t let people travel half way around the world to come visit you. You go visit them. Avail yourself to them. Organise town hall meetings, political conferences and events to hear people , see them and shake their hands. Sometimes you have to stoop very low to conquer. A photographer who captures his masterpiece never do it standing. They crawl in filth most times to achieve this.
The reason why Buhari is popular among the talakawas in the north is because he associated with them. He made them feel like he’s one of their own. Same thing with Tinubu. Tinubu has literally turned Bourdillon into a ‘refugee camp’ and a Mecca sort of where people troop in and out and he lets them close to him.
That can not be really said of Atiku despite being a very successful businessman. Atiku believes he can use education to create awareness but that’s not enough because he finds himself around people who struggles academically and mostly choose the almajiri system. He didn’t connect with them. Many of these people thinks he has segregated himself from them. They feel he’s too far from them. I’ve seen Atiku’s convoy and it’s very very long. That can not be said if Buhari before he became president. Tinubu used to open his car windows just to talk to street cleaners but Atiku goes from home to airport in a large retinue of cars that he can only be seen from afar.
If Atiku tries to come down from his high horse at this point, it will be seen as a desperate attempt to appease the people he has abandoned. It may be used as a weapon by his opponent and whether it will stick is what I can’t say.
This is where Atiku’s problem lies and time may be too short for him to fix.
The good thing going for him is his good health and this is despite his age. He’s not fidgety like Tinubu. He’s not known to have health problems which I believe Nigerians will use as a yardstick after Buhari.
OkBye!. Make una come beat me.