Atiku: How I blocked a former Anambra governor from returning to office

Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), says he had a hand in Chinwoke Mbadinuju’s failed bid at getting a second term as governor of Anambra state in 2003.

While fielding questions on The Candidates, a live television show on the 2019 elections, Atiku who was then vice-president to Olusegun Obasanjo said Mbadinuju did not do well with the state’s educational sector which Atiku said is most important to him.

He said he convinced Obasanjo that they should work against Mbadinuju.

“When I was VP, I took a tour to Anambra state during the governorship administration of Chinwoke Mbadinuju. I found out all the public schools were overtaken by weeds,” he said.

“I went back to the president and said this governor must never be allowed to come back. And, believe me, he never did.”

Mbadinuju had won the PDP governorship primary in 2003 but Chris Ngige was named the party’s candidate.

In an interview with Vanguard in 2012, Mbadinuju had also accused Obasanjo of stopping him from getting a second term as governor.

“And when it came to second term, the man who praised me so much; he wrote in the News magazine of 27th December, 2004, that he, President Obasanjo, single handedly stopped my second term in office. He was the person who said I scored A-plus in infrastructure and when it came to peace and security, I got Gold cup in National Competition in Abuja and in infrastructural development, I got B, second position,” he said.

“So, in terms of working as a governor of a state nobody can challenge me. When I asked him in Awka when he came to raise Ngige’s hand, I said, ‘ah Baba, why did you raise Ngige’s hand now, (yet) you gave me A-plus in my work?” He said, ‘Odera, it is politics.’ I said, ‘politics with my second term?’”