Strategy, by the dictionary, is a plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. According to Prof Agwu Akpala, my teacher at UNN and the first Professor of Management in Africa, strategic plan is broad and long ranged and takes its first step in looking outside the organisation, at the surrounding social, political, economic and technological environment.

This step is to seek out the opportunities for utilization and the obstacles for minimization. In a much simpler expression, strategic planning is action by management in combining organizational resources, taking into account its internal and external opportunities, as well as constraints so that the organisation can reap the best possible advantage over its competitors in order to survive and grow.

Atiku Abubakar has the ambition to be the President of Nigeria. He has nursed this ambition for a long time since 1992. He has not achieved it because he simply lacks the right strategy. He is rich in material resources, but not so rich in strategy. The secret of strategic success demands that you take a broad and long range attitude towards outwitting your opponents. You must factor in the surrounding environment in your decision making. Unfortunately for Atiku Abubakar, he does not understand the principle of consultation before taking decisions. He loves to go it alone. Let us commence with his choice of vice presidential candidates whenever he has the opportunity to emerge as the presidential candidate of a political party, which is the first constitutional duty of a presidential candidate. It is important to note that the 2023 presidential election will mark the sixth time Atiku will be contesting for the post of President in Nigeria. He lost three at primary election and won three. He has had the privilege of picking three vice presidential candidates and his choice has always created problems for him. The problems he gets do not stem from the qualities of his vice presidential picks, they stem from his inability to be a team player, gross deficiency in consultation.

The first choice he made in 2007 for a vice president was Senator Ben Obi. An intelligent gentleman. But his party then was formed between the Tinubu group and Atiku group. Having gotten the post of the president, strategy demanded that he ceded the option to choose the vice from the Tinubu group. He did not lose because he chose a person from the Southeast, he lost because he failed to consult and get the acceptance of his choice from the Tinubu group. Buhari failed in the 2011 election because he chose a person from Southwest, Pastor Tunde Bakare, who wasn’t part of the Tinubu clan. He lost the entire South. He learnt his lesson in 2015 when he gave Tinubu the free hand to choose a vice for him, but insisted on the characteristics of the choice Tinubu should make. He insisted on a Christian vice, which Tinubu gave to him.

It seems Atiku doesn’t learn from his mistakes. In 2019, he chose the cerebral Peter Obi as vice without consultation with the entire Southeast political establishment. This instantly drew the ire of the Southeast governors who initially refused to cooperate with his campaign team. It took the ingenuity of Peter Obi to unify the Southeast behind the ticket eventually. Some governors like David Umahi openly told everyone that Buhari will get the required 25% vote in Ebonyi and Buhari did, showing that the mistake affected the fortunes of PDP in the Southeast. Today, Umahi is a member of the APC and his divergence started from then. The third choice is Gov Ifeanyi Okowa. Unfortunately, there’s no more a Gov Peter Obi to help Atiku unify people behind him after making mistakes. More unfortunately, Atiku, who knows that consultation and team work are his greatest weak points, decided to pretentiously set up a committee to assist him choose a vice presidential candidate, to create the impression that he consults. The Committee came back to him with an overwhelming support of 14 – 3 in favour of Gov Wike. Suddenly, he remembered that the right to choose the vice presidential candidate was his sole constitutional duty. He forgot that once you delegate your authority, honour demands that you honour their decision.

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The disheartening thing about the decision of Atiku to jettison the choice of Wike, obviously for a morbid hatred for his personality, as his vice presidential candidate, is that he turned back to accuse the chairman of the committee, Gov Samuel Ortom, of lying that Wike did win the contest. Gov Wike, unlike him, said nothing, after the choice of Okowa, in disregard of the decision of the committee, yet all the leading members of Atiku camp were raining abuses on him and Atiku refused, failed or neglected to openly call them to order. You wounded a lion and you openly decided to rub salt to his injury. It was only when Wike came back from his holiday abroad and shot some warning defensive arrows that the insulters slowed a bit. Whenever they think that they have upper hand, they resume insulting Wike. When Ayu got assurance that his seat is protected by Atiku, he referred to the agitation of the entire southern Nigeria for the post of the National Chairman as the ranting of children. Till date, Atiku has not openly rebuked his followers. As at today, the entire southern leaders who feel aggrieved about the injustice in the PDP have pulled out of the campaign council and the response to them is take it or go to hell. What a strategy?

Another strategic blunder committed by Atiku is his inconsistency in everything he does. He acts on impulse. He promised the Tinubu group to produce the vice presidential ticket of the AC in 2007 and failed them. He promised Wike two days after the presidential primary that Ayu must go, he failed to deliver. Whenever, he fails to deliver, he is not even humble enough to apologise immediately and give genuine reasons he failed. Even when he gives reasons, he exposes his inconsistency. He agreed publicly that going by the Constitution of PDP and the rules of equity, justice and fairness that it was the turn of the Southeast to produce the next President and the Southeast paraded the most qualified candidates in the primary, yet he turned back to contest against the Southeast politicians. Why publicly say it if you will not personally respect it? Why tell Wike that Ayu will go and later start protecting Ayu with the same Constitution you will not respect if it doesn’t favour you? Is it possible Atiku did not know the contents of the PDP Constitution when he promised Wike that Ayu will go? Or he intentionally was temporarily placating Wike to pacify him for a while to give Atiku the initial space to consolidate before telling Wike and the entire South to go to hell or both. Any leader whose words cannot be trusted lacks the correct strategic plan to win a major national election like the presidential election.

Atiku makes wrong choices. A great strategist should have a long term approach to issues. In 1999, Atiku ran for the governorship of Adamawa State and won resoundingly. Before he was sworn in, Obasanjo offered him the position of the VP and he accepted. That was a strategic blunder. Any strategic leader who has the ambition to become president should have preferred being a governor to being a vice president at the inception of democracy. Being a governor will assist him to showcase his executive credentials and avoid the friction between him and his boss because he would have been the boss. Today, Tinubu’s achievements in Lagos as governor are attributed to him, Obi’s achievements in Anambra as governor are attributed to him, but Atiku’s achievements as VP in Obasanjo’s government are attributed to Obasanjo while Atiku’s failings as VP are attributed to Atiku. If he had remained a governor, Obasanjo would have handed over power to him because he would have used Adamawa to showcase his developmental strides and preserved the initial love Obasanjo had for him that made Obasanjo pick him to become his vice. His courteous refusal to become Obasanjo’s vice would have created the impression in Obasanjo’s heart that he was not obviously over-ambitious and placed him in a more sure footing to succeed Obasanjo. Obasanjo is a strong character, Atiku is a strong character, two of them cannot work together as associates where Obasanjo is the superior. Obasanjo’s background is the military where subordinates are expected to obey the last order. Atiku had become a political juggernaut in 1999 who had all the powers to influence the goings on in his party from 1999 and would not want to be treated like a baby. Conflict was inevitable and the eventual loser will most likely be the vice.

By 2003 when he noticed that he was falling out of favour with Obasanjo, he made a wrong choice by not upstaging Obasanjo then, afterall, Dr Alex Ekwueme has revealed that there was an understanding that each president should do only a term to enable the post rotate among the six geo-political zones within 24 years. He had the majority of the hawkish governors on his side then like James Ibori and Orji Uzor Kalu, but chickened out when Obasanjo, out of fear of the rebellion of those hawkish governors, changed his mind from removing him as his vice and reappointed him. You don’t make your boss kneel down for you to get your loyalty and eventually expect him to bequeath power to you while leaving. It’s either you consistently bow loyally to him or you kick him out when you are strongest. In 2007, when Obasanjo wanted third term which would have scuttled the ambition of Atiku to succeed him, Atiku fought him and won the fight of the destruction of the third term, but lost the fight to be president because Obasanjo fought his ambition and destroyed it. Atiku lost the opportunity to be Nigeria’s hero when he won the fight against 3rd term and went ahead to contest the 2007 presidential election. His contest made it appear that he fought third term because of his ambition not because of his principles. If he had won the fight, but strategically refused to contest in 2007, claiming he fought to defend democracy, Nigerians would have rooted for him after the death of Yar’Adua. Political strategy will teach you that in a  multi-ethnic, multi-religious society like ours, there’s time to contest and there’s time to refrain from contesting. A candidate that contests every election certainly does not know how to choose his fights. As things stand now, Atiku has already failed again in strategy in the coming 2023 election with the avoidable division in his party. Nobody in opposition wins election with a divided house.