“If I were desperate, I’d have taken the Presidency in 2003” – Atiku

Atiku Abubakar had a message for everyone calling him desperate to become Nigeria's president: according to him, if he really wanted the presidency that badly, he would have taken his shot years earlier.

In August 2018, the former vice-president was campaigning for the PDP presidential ticket ahead of the 2019 election when he pushed back against criticism that he was desperate for the nation's highest office. 

Atiku Abubakar has reacted to comments that he’s desperate to be president.
“What do you expect my critics to say? And there is nothing wrong with entering the race. I can run as many times as possible.
I am fit and qualified. I still have ideas that I believe that are going to put this country on the right path. So, what is wrong with running?
I am not desperate and if I were desperate, I would have taken the Presidency in 2003. If I were desperate, I would not have stepped down for (late Moshood) Abiola. I am not desperate,” he said.
Atiku, speaking to delegates of the Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during a visit to them, said that he’s running for the nation’s highest office because he’s qualified.
Punch reports that he visited the delegates to solicit their supporting in the party’s upcoming presidential primary in September.

He criticised the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the reason for the loss of jobs in the country.


“Since the APC came into power, it said it was going to create three million jobs. It has lost three million jobs every year and today, we have 11 million young Nigerians not working,” he said.
Atiku, who had earlier left the PDP for APC, said: “It is only the PDP that can create these jobs because we have done so before. We have created jobs before; we have brought prosperity before in this country. We have unified this country before and we have ensured that there was equity in this country before.”


Punch

When a politician says, “If I were desperate, I would have taken it years ago,” does that actually settle the question of ambition — or can someone be both patient then and determined now?