RE: “ATIKU, NOT TINUBU, IS THE WRECKING BALL” — A LETTER TO AZU ISHIEKWENE: THE LAMENTATION OF A MERCENARY PEN.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
There was a time when writing was sacramental, when a columnist’s page was the altar of truth and not the pulpit of political theatre. There was a time when journalism was a calling, not a convenience. But now, we are tormented weekly by the lamentations of mercenary pens , like yours, Azu Ishiekwene ,who, instead of speaking truth to power, speak half-truths for power.
Your recent article, “Atiku, Not Tinubu, Is the Wrecking Ball,” is not a commentary; it is a hasty cocktail of false equivalences, tu quoque fallacies, red herrings, and historical heresies. You did not write a column; you wrote a confessional disguised as criticism , an open letter of fear addressed not to the public but to your political masters. And it reeked ,not of objectivity, but of obligation.
In that poorly disguised hit piece, you mocked a man not because he failed, but because he dared. You did not examine Atiku’s ideas ,you dismissed his identity. You ignored his sacrifices, belittled his consistency, twisted his legacy, and, in a most laughable fashion, tried to recycle Tinubu’s monumental failures as Atiku’s moral burden. The irony, sir, is that it was you , not Atiku , who held the wrecking ball. But you aimed it at truth.
Let us start with the spine of your article , the condescending suggestion that Atiku should quit politics because he has contested many times. You said it with the arrogant finality of a man who has no understanding of how history works. You scorned his persistence, mocked his hope, and derided his patience. Yet, this same logic would have disqualified every great leader who ever dared to believe in tomorrow.
Abraham Lincoln lost eight elections before becoming President. He was defeated in business, suffered a nervous breakdown, buried his children, and was told repeatedly that he would never lead. But he persisted. And when he finally won, he didn’t just govern America ,he saved its soul.
Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison. He was called a terrorist, labeled a troublemaker, denied his freedom, and written off. But he waited. He endured. And when the gates finally opened, he emerged not with vengeance but vision. South Africa did not regret his persistence , they worshipped it.
And yet you, Azu, a journalist whose legacy will be lost in the footnotes of paid polemics, have the effrontery to ask Atiku to quit? On what moral ground do you stand? What pedestal of honour do you write from? If Lincoln were Nigerian today, would you not have accused him of obsession? If Mandela were contesting elections from Kuje prison, would you not deride him as desperate? If Jesus had waited 30 years before beginning His ministry in Lagos, would you not tweet that He should focus on carpentry instead?
You mock a man for standing in the rain of Nigerian politics without an umbrella, yet you forget that Nigeria is not lacking in leaders who retire too early , it is dying for those who refuse to be buried alive. Atiku Abubakar is not contesting for himself. He is contesting because the alternative is a continuation of the present nightmare: a government whose policy is pain, whose rhetoric is revenge, whose economy is now run by press statements and palliatives.
You said Atiku is the wrecking ball, but who wrecked the naira? Who turned the price of rice into a political metaphor for poverty? Who presides over a nation where citizens now pay for suffering in instalments? Who authored this economic obituary being read every week by jobless graduates and hopeless pensioners?
You deliberately deployed a strawman argument by reducing Atiku’s credibility to past party switches, forgetting that political realignment in Nigeria is often less betrayal than survival. The real betrayal is what we are seeing now , an elite-preserving masquerade party in Aso Rock pretending to govern, while journalists like you dance around the bonfire of public deception. Have you forgotten that Tinubu also once defected from AD to AC? Or you don’t know that AD had a presidential candidate in 2007 and AC had? Either you once defected once or twice, it doesn’t matter , defection is defection.
And then you peddled the old lie , that Atiku has nothing new to offer. This is not only dishonest; it is intellectually lazy. Atiku has consistently advocated restructuring before it was fashionable. He speaks of privatization not as a distant theory but as a lived reality , having supervised Nigeria’s most impactful economic liberalisation as Vice President with the telecommunications revolution, which gave Nigerian people easy access to phones for easy communication and to engage in social media (Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok).
Atiku has built businesses, not just political empires. He has invested in education, not just electioneering. He does not just say “youths are the future” ,he employs them. Contrast that with your hero and your Party, who cannot even tell Nigerians who printed the trillions spent during COVID, who could not tell us his companies’ names or the sources of his wealth.
But of course, you did not come to argue ideas. You came to assassinate credibility. You came with a dull knife, hoping to carve open Atiku’s name and make Tinubu look taller by comparison. But lies, no matter how well-typed, cannot elevate the truth.
You wrote like a man who wanted to be remembered , not for courage, but compliance. And I will tell you this: Atiku may become President, for he has already achieved what no propaganda can erase ,he has become the permanent nightmare of Nigeria’s current ruling class. That is why your kind cannot sleep.
It is not Atiku’s ambition that frightens Tinubu and his acolytes. It is his resilience. It is his refusal to disappear. It is the stubborn way he reappears after every political assassination, like a phoenix in northern regalia, refusing to die, refusing to go quietly. His enemies hoped that time would wear him down. But like Caleb in the Bible, he says, “Give me this mountain!” (Joshua 14:12). That’s not desperation ,that’s destiny.
Every country needs a man who reminds the system that it cannot kill hope. Nigeria needs Atiku , not just to contest, but to keep contesting and win, to be the eternal rebuke to those who think they can silence ambition with rigged elections and ridiculous editorials.
You say Atiku’s time is past. But the future does not belong to calendars , it belongs to convictions. You say he should retire. But why should he retire from a mission that is yet unfinished? Even Moses led at 80. Even Abraham waited 25 years. Even David fought giants before he ruled. And Joseph, though imprisoned by betrayal, became prime minister in a land of foreigners.
Yes, 2027 shall come. And this time, Atiku will contest, and Atiku and Nigeria will win. Not the conjured apparitions of ballots and fingerprints ghost-written in the deep crevices of electoral darkness, but the real Nigeria. The suffering Nigeria. The Nigeria of garri without sugar and stew without meat. And in that moment, your mentor Tinubu and his cohorts will discover that even the darkest rigging cannot eclipse the rising sun of a determined people.
Azu’s increasing desperation to vilify Atiku Abubakar has sadly eroded his grasp of basic historical facts and political reality. In a flurry of misguided bitterness, he now misrepresents timelines, misstates affiliations, and mangles the truth with reckless abandon. He forgets, or deliberately ignores, that Atiku was never a member of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). That party didn’t even exist when Atiku made his move. What existed in 2006 was the Action Congress (AC), a coalition he co-founded with Bola Tinubu and others, as a direct response to the unfriendly atmosphere within the PDP under President Obasanjo.
The blind urge to paint Atiku as a power-hungry nomad has clouded Azu’s once-astute judgment. The narrative he now weaves is no longer rooted in sober analysis, but in a vendetta-driven fiction crafted to appease new loyalties or satisfy personal disillusionment. This distortion not only undermines Azu’s credibility but also insults the intelligence of those familiar with Nigeria’s democratic evolution.
In his obsession with “the marabout’s prophecy,” Azu ignores a more fundamental truth: that Atiku’s presidential ambition is not driven by superstition but by a consistent, decades-long commitment to restructuring, economic liberalism, and democratic deepening. The man has evolved with the times, not from desperation, but from an enduring vision of a better Nigeria.
To accuse him of defying rotation or sabotaging convention is to forget the very real circumstances of that primary and the open nature of the contest. Atiku did not subvert any process,he simply won it. And in doing so, he offered the PDP its best hope of reclaiming power from a flailing APC government that had exhausted Nigerians with incompetence and insensitivity.
If Azu would pause and reflect, he might rediscover the value of honest critique over bitter revisionism. Truth, after all, is sacred, even in opposition
You, Azu, may continue your indulgent silence when millions are crying out from the pangs of hunger, because the crumbs off Tinubu’s table still glitter in your plate. But know this: when the people stand, no propaganda column can withstand them. While the country sinks into artificial misery engineered by a visionless emperor at Aso Rock, you polish your keyboard to defame Atiku , a man whose offense is that he dares to hope. You write with the ink of deceit, not justice.
Come to think of it, Mr. Azu, where was your journalistic rage when Tinubu’s so-called secondary school was found to have been founded after he allegedly graduated from it? Did you lose your pen? Or did the battery of your conscience die in the face of ill-gotten access?
Where was your columnist thunder when it became a global fact that Tinubu forfeited proceeds linked to narcotics , a cocaine-linked forfeiture that would make any democratic conscience shudder? But your keyboard froze. Or was it soaked in the buttered largesse of Lagos crumbs? It doesn’t matter so far it is Tinubu,it can be ignored but Atiku is always the issue.
Were you not here when it was revealed by official records that the Tinubu who attended Chicago State University was registered as a female? Did your journalistic curiosity pack its bags and travel? Or did the envelope of silence become too golden to disturb?
And pray tell, what words spilled from your mouth when Tinubu’s true age , 79, not 72 , was being circulated with document trails longer than a street in Ikoyi? Did you suddenly adopt the vow of monastic muteness? Did your satirical sword turn into a toothpick?
All these, Azu, all these define the man whose honour you now mortgage your ink for. They paint the picture of a throne built on broken truths, fraudulent records, and a campaign of enforced delusion. And you, the once-respected chronicler of society, have become his minstrel , a practitioner of yellow journalism with a golden typewriter of deception, ever eager to write against Atiku.
But the nation watches. History records. And when that 2027 day dawns, even your satire will be forced to confess that Nigeria has risen again. And the joke will not be on Atiku , but on the merchants of mischief who thought truth could be buried forever.
So mock if you must, Azu. Write another piece next week. Perhaps title it “Atiku Is the Problem with Rainfall in Nigeria.” Or “Atiku Caused Fuel Scarcity in 1998.” But no matter what you write, remember this: history is patient, but it is merciless. It records everything. And one day, when the dust settles and Nigeria is truly free, you will be remembered not for standing with the truth , but for typing against it.
As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said: “The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie.” You, sir, have chosen the lie.
And for that, history has already written its reply.
Aare Amerijoye DOT.B
Director General
The Narrative Force
