by Mohammed Bello Doka
6 May, 2026
Let us begin with the plain facts, because a question this serious cannot be answered with sentiment.
First, consider the man from Kano. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso once made a public promise. He said he would only join a political party that gave him either the presidential ticket or the vice presidential ticket. That was his condition, his bottom line, his word. Now watch what he has done with that word.
In this election season alone, Kwankwaso has negotiated for the vice presidential slot with Bola Tinubu of the APC. When that did not materialise, he turned to the camp of former President Goodluck Jonathan, again demanding the number two position. Then he moved to the African Democratic Congress, the ADC, again seeking the vice presidency. And now, finally, he has landed in the NDC as the vice presidential candidate to Peter Obi. Four different parties, four separate negotiations, all for the same personal ambition. This is not a man in pursuit of a principle. This is a man in pursuit of any ticket that will keep him on the ballot. He has fulfilled his promise only in the most cynical sense: he has indeed joined a party that gave him a VP slot, but he has done so after hawking himself to every political stall in the marketplace. The North, which he claims to represent, has become nothing more than the currency he spends to buy relevance.
Now let us turn to Atiku Abubakar. His political history is longer and, if one is honest, far more consistent. In 1999, he became Vice President to Olusegun Obasanjo. But he soon accused Obasanjo of sidelining the North on key national issues. That accusation led to a bitter fallout. Atiku did not complain in whispers. He took Obasanjo to court, multiple times, on different issues, challenging the president’s decisions and his marginalisation of the northern region. When Obasanjo attempted to impose Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as his successor in an election that Yar’Adua himself later admitted was deeply flawed, Atiku stood against that imposition. He contested that election against Obasanjo’s will, fully aware that the machinery of incumbency was stacked against him.
Then came the tragedy of Yar’Adua’s death in office. Goodluck Jonathan completed the tenure. At that moment, in 2011, Atiku made a critical argument. He said that based on the zoning arrangement that had informally guided Nigerian politics since 1999, it was the turn of the North to provide the next president. The South, by and large, disagreed. Many southern leaders argued that zoning was unconstitutional, that the best candidate should simply emerge. Goodluck Jonathan contested and won. Atiku accepted that outcome, but he did not abandon the principle. He continued to argue that fairness demanded a rotational system that respected regional equity.
Fast forward to 2027. The South now makes the same argument that the North made in 2011. Because President Muhammadu Buhari, a northerner, ruled for eight years, the South insists it is their turn. This is precisely the same reasoning Atiku used fourteen years earlier. But Atiku now offers a counter-arithmetic that the South would prefer to ignore. He points out that from 1999 to 2027, the South will have held the presidency for eighteen years: eight years under Obasanjo, six under Jonathan, and four under Tinubu. The North, by contrast, will have held the presidency for only ten years: two under Yar’Adua and eight under Buhari. Therefore, Atiku concludes, it is still the turn of the North to correct this eight-year disparity. This is not a self-serving calculation. This is a mathematical claim rooted in the very zoning logic the South now embraces. Atiku has been consistent: he defended northern rotation in 2011, he defended it in 2023 when he argued that the North deserved to complete Yar’Adua’s truncated term, and he defends it now.
Now, ask yourself a psychological question. Why does Kwankwaso negotiate for the vice presidency with southern candidates—first Jonathan, then Tinubu, now Peter Obi—while Atiku insists on the presidency itself from a northern platform? Why does Kwankwaso, who once commanded a formidable political machine in Kano, reduce himself to a running mate for one southern politician after another? The answer is uncomfortable but clear. Kwankwaso does not believe the He can win the presidency on its own terms. He has lost faith in his ability and capacity . So he abandons the fight for the top slot and settles for second place under a southern banner. To Kwankwaso it's all about Kwankwaso.
Meanwhile, Atiku continues to argue that the North deserves the presidency not because he is desperate but because the numbers support it. One man carries the region’s banner into battle. The other negotiates to carry another region’s baggage.
Consider the question of betrayal. When a man from the North spends an entire election cycle shopping himself as a vice president to every southern candidate with a functional bank account who will listen, what is he doing? He is telling the North that it cannot produce a president, that its best role is to support a leader from elsewhere even when she's clearly been owed deficit. He is surrendering before the fight begins. And when that same man refuses to step down for a united northern candidate in 2023, splitting the northern vote and handing victory to a southerner, he is not acting as a defender of the North. He is acting as a spoiler. That is betrayal, plain and simple.
Now consider hypocrisy. Kwankwaso once demanded the presidency or nothing. Now he accepts the vice presidency from Peter Obi. He once accused the APC of neglecting the North, yet he negotiated with Tinubu for the same VP slot. He once claimed zoning was necessary, yet he is willing to serve under a candidate from the South-East, a region that never held the presidency under the zoning arrangement he supposedly reveres. By what standard is this not hypocrisy?
And selfishness. Kwankwaso’s entire political trajectory is a testament to personal ambition dressed in regional clothing. He uses the North when it suits him and discards it when a better offer arrives from the South. He is not building a northern political project. He is building a Kwankwaso project.
Atiku, by contrast, has made choices that cost him power. He sued a president from his own party because that president sidelined the North. He contested against Obasanjo’s anointed candidate. He refused to accept the southern argument in 2011 and refused to accept it again in 2027, even when the easier path would have been to campaign for himself without making the northern case. He has not abandoned his people. He has stood by them, year after year, election after election.
The conclusion, then, is inescapable. Between these two men, Kwankwaso is the hypocrite. Kwankwaso is the selfish one. And Kwankwaso has betrayed the North, not once but repeatedly, with every negotiation for a vice presidential slot under a southern president. Atiku Abubakar has done none of those things. He has been the steady, if flawed, voice of northern equity. The North knows the difference. It has always known. The only question that remains is whether it will act on that knowledge when the ballot is cast.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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Opinion