The thing about Nigerian politics is that you never really need to ask where the music is playing. You just listen to who’s dancing. And lately, the rhythm has shifted—again—as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar takes another spin through the revolving doors of party politics, while Bukola Saraki, once Senate President, plants his feet more firmly inside the house he helped build.
Atiku’s latest departure from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), formally announced in a letter that was equal parts gratitude and regret, is his third since 1999. The stated reason? The PDP has, in his words, lost its way. The unspoken truth? Presidential ambition waits for no party. And so, off he goes, this time to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), a new coalition outfit that has somehow managed to attract every politician with a résumé and a score to settle.
The response has been predictably unsentimental. From PDP stalwarts to the APC’s ever-snide chorus, most political actors have greeted Atiku’s exit with the kind of shrug usually reserved for bad weather: unfortunate, perhaps, but hardly unexpected. In Adamawa, his home state, some party leaders even held what sounded suspiciously like a thanksgiving.
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Meanwhile, Saraki is offering a different kind of lesson in political patience. At a PDP stakeholders’ meeting in Ilorin, he reminded his followers that loyalty still has a place, even if it’s out of fashion. While some run at the first whiff of a zoning dispute, Saraki, for now, seems content to work the phones, run the reconciliation committee, and keep the PDP’s lights on in Kwara.
So here we are: Atiku, restless and ever-aspirational, chasing the presidency like a golden fleece. Saraki, standing guard over a fractured party like a reluctant landlord waiting for the tenants to stop fighting. Whether either man will find what he’s looking for is anyone’s guess.
But in this theatre of shifting allegiances, one thing remains certain: the music never stops in Nigerian politics. Some just change the tune more often than others.
