The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar flatly denied the ruling APC allegation that he hails from Cameroon. Atiku said he is a Nigerian by birth as his parents both have roots in the North West and is therefore qualified to seek office of the president.
The party had claimed that Jada in Adamawa State, where Atiku was born on 25th November, 1946, was part of the Germany administered territory of British Cameroons which became a mandate territory of the League of Nations following Germany’s defeat in World War I in 1918, and opted to join Nigeria in a plebiscite in 1961.
But Atiku in a petition by his team of lawyers led by Livi Uzoukwu (SAN), stated that his father, Garba Atiku Abdulkadir was a Nigerian by birth who hailed from Wurno in present day Sokoto State, while his mother Aisha Kande was also a Nigerian who hailed from Dutse in present day Jigawa State. He said both were of Fulani tribe, indigenous to Nigeria.
“The birth of the 1st petitioner (Atiku) in Jada, in present day Adamawa State of Nigeria was occasioned by the movement of his paternal grandfather called Atiku who was an itinerant trader, from Wurno in present day Sokoto State to Jada in the company of his friend, Ardo Usman,” he said.
Atiku contended that he had served in the Nigerian Customs Service, and had been a presidential aspirant under the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1992, contested and won the governorship of Adamawa State in 1999 under the PDP, and became vice president under the same platform in 1999 with President Olusegun Obasanjo and was re-elected in 2003.
He further averred that he was the recipient of the National Honour of Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON), and was the traditional title holder of Turakin Adamawa from 1982 to 2017 when he was elevated to Wazirin Adamawa.
Atiku contended that APC’s reply was incompetent because the counsel who signed it did not reflect his National Identity Number “contrary to the provisions of the Mandatory Use of National Identification Number, Regulations, 2017, made pursuant to the National Identity Management Commission Act, 2007.”