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Will Nigeria’s former Vice President, Atiku, be 6-time lucky as he joins 2023 presidential race?

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Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar will for the sixth time contest to be Nigeria’s president as he officially declared his intention to run for the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential ticket ahead of the 2023 general elections.

Atiku’s declaration comes a week after he solicited the support of members of the Board of Trustees of the PDP last week for his ambition to become to grab the presidential ticket of Nigeria’s main position and hopefully become Nigeria’s next president.

The official declaration was held on Wednesday in Abuja, Nigeria’s seat of power at the International Conference Centre.

The presidential hopeful stressed the state of insecurity in Nigeria and vowed that his administration would not tolerate insecurity. “The most fundamental right of every Nigerian is the right to life. But the APC has failed to protect the life of her citizens… under my Presidency I will not tolerate insecurity.

He also emphasized other critical aspects of Nigeria that he believes the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) hasn’t met up to expectations.

“They said we should go back to farms. How can Nigerians return to the farms when they have not secured the farms?

“When the APC came in 2015, they met a debt profile of N12tn. But now we have more than N32tn in debt. Under my watch, I will reduce borrowing.”

 “Nigeria is in dire need of visionary leadership. Presently Nigeria is a sinking ship that must be urgently rescued. That is why I am announcing my candidacy for the President

Since his entry into politics in 1993, Atiku Abubakar has unsuccessfully contested to be Nigeria’s president five times. In 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019. Today’s announcement put him in the ring for the sixth.

In 1993, he contested the Social Democratic Party presidential primaries losing to Moshood Abiola and Baba Gana Kingibe. He was a presidential candidate of the Action Congress in the 2007 presidential election coming in third to Umaru Yar’Adua of the PDP and Muhammadu Buhari of the ANPP.

He contested the presidential primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party during the 2011 presidential election losing out to incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan. In 2014, he joined the All Progressives Congress ahead of the 2015 presidential election and contested the presidential primaries losing to Muhammadu Buhari. In 2017, he returned to the Peoples Democratic Party and was the party presidential candidate during the 2019 presidential election, again losing to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

It remains to be seen if Atiku will get lucky in his sixth push for Nigeria’s top job. His first hurdle will be to grab his party, PDP’s presidential ticket amidst competition from other candidates notably among which are former Nigeria’s Senate President, Bukola Saraki, and Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto state who are both from the same region as him.

There are possibly other contending voices within PDP from the other parts of the country who seem interested in grabbing the presidential ticket also, but none has declared an interest. One of them is Atiku’s running mates in the last presidential elections, Mr. Peter Obi who has hinted that he would contest for Nigeria’s top job if the PDP zones the position in his region.

After the internal party hurdle will be the actual height to scale, to defeat the party of an incumbent president is not a common feat in African politics. But then, nothing is cast in stone in Nigeria, not even being a Northern candidate contesting against a Southern candidate as some have argued. Previous presidential elections in Nigeria proved that.

Aside from the North/South divide of Nigeria’s presidential election race, Atiku can also draw motivation from the fact that current President Muhammadu Buhari defeated a sitting president Goodluck Jonathan in 2015. Hence, there is all to fight for.  I wish him luck.

Politics

Ugandan opposition politician abducted, wife says

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According to his wife on Wednesday, a well-known opposition leader from Uganda, Kizza Besigye was abducted during a book launch in Kenya over the weekend, taken to Uganda, and detained at a military prison in Kampala.

Despite his rejection of the results, Besigye has run against Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni four times and lost each time, claiming voting intimidation and fraud. He has been arrested several times in the past.

“I request the (government) of Uganda to release my husband Dr Kizza Besigye from where he is being held immediately,” said his wife Winnie Byanyima.

It was not immediately possible to get in touch with a Ugandan military spokesperson for comment.

“As police we don’t have him, so we can’t make any comment,” Ugandan police spokesman Kituuma Rusoke told Reuters.
A spokesperson for Kenya’s national police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Besigye’s Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) party, one of Uganda’s major opposition parties, had 36 members arrested by Kenyan police in July. They were then deported to Uganda and accused of terrorism-related charges.

On the social networking site X, Byanyima stated that Besigye, who served as Museveni’s doctor during the guerrilla war but later turned into a vocal opponent, was abducted on Saturday as senior Kenyan opposition leader Martha Karua was launching a book.

“I am now reliably informed that he is in a military jail in Kampala,” said Byanyima, who is the executive director of UNAIDS, the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. “We his family and his lawyers demand to see him. He is not a soldier. Why is he being held in a military jail?”

Museveni’s administration has been charged with repeatedly violating the human rights of opposition leaders and followers, including extrajudicial executions, torture, and unlawful detentions.

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Sudan army chief Burhan meets US envoy

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The United States special envoy to Sudan has made his first trip to the African nation, hoping to bring an end to a horrific war and boost relief to millions of people in need.

After being appointed Washington’s ambassador to Sudan in February, Tom Perriello visited Port Sudan, the army-led government’s de facto capital on the Red Sea coast.

For the first time since the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in April 2023 due to the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a top U.S. official visited the nation.

“We feel an enormous amount of urgency to end this crisis and to ensure that we can … help to get food and medicine and life-saving support to the 20 million people plus that are in need,” a State Department official said before the trip.

Over 25 million people, or half of Sudan’s population, require help, according to the U.N., as hunger has spread to one area and over 11 million people have abandoned their homes.

Sudan’s sovereign council stated in a statement that Perriello spoke with tribal, government, and humanitarian figures in addition to Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s army head.

During what the council described as a “lengthy, comprehensive, and frank” discussion, the two men talked about how to provide humanitarian help and how to end the war through a political process.

“The U.S. envoy presented several suggestions which the head of the sovereign council agreed to,” the statement said.

Although the army declined to join U.S.-mediated peace negotiations in Geneva earlier this year, the meetings did obtain commitments from the warring parties to increase access to aid.

A power battle between the army and the RSF preceded a planned shift to civilian government, which is why the conflict broke out more than a year ago.

Perriello discussed “the need to cease fighting, enable unhindered humanitarian access, including through localized pauses in the fighting to allow for the delivery of emergency relief supplies, and commit to a civilian government,” a State Department statement said.

“Right now, I think there’s a key opportunity to build on the expansion of humanitarian aid,” the State Department official stated, emphasising the need for relief corridors to the most battle-ravaged areas, such as al-Fashir, Sennar, and parts of the capital Khartoum, even though the U.S. would continue to pursue a more comprehensive ceasefire and negotiations.

Last Monday, Sudan’s sovereign council announced that it would prolong the temporary opening of the Adre border crossing with Chad. According to relief organisations, this crossing is essential for delivering food and other supplies to famine-prone portions of the Darfur and Kordofan regions.

An RSF official stated at a press conference in Nairobi that while they were still amenable to peace, they had doubts about the army’s readiness.

“They do not listen to any language but that of the rifle, and so we will continue to talk to them in the language they understand,” said Brigadier General Omar Hamdan.

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