The Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, SAN, CON, has described former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, as “a butterfly that thinks it is a bird,” accusing him of becoming increasingly jittery ahead of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign flag-off in Kaduna State.
Keyamo, in a statement titled, “Why Atiku Abubakar is Particularly Jittery About the Kaduna Flag-Off,”said Atiku had resorted to what he described as desperate online attacks against the APC, particularly in the North, ahead of the campaign rally.
According to him, one of the tactics allegedly being employed by Atiku’s camp is to position cameras at strategic locations, procure individuals to tear down posters of President Bola Tinubu and circulate the videos online to create the impression that the President is being rejected in the region.
He also accused the former vice president’s camp of spreading disinformation about the APC campaign, citing as an example a purported letter alleging that N2.3 trillion had been deployed for the Kaduna rally.
Keyamo said the alleged tactics were designed to generate public outrage and create a false impression that Tinubu had been “massively rejected” by voters in the North.
He argued that Atiku was particularly unsettled because he had been relying heavily on Northern votes as the cornerstone of his 2027 presidential ambition, despite allegedly having little political traction in the South.
The minister recalled that Atiku lost across the North-Central states and all the Southern states, except Osun State, during the 2023 presidential election.
According to Keyamo, Atiku’s original calculation was that Tinubu would not seriously compete for votes in the North and would therefore be confined largely to parts of the South.
He further alleged that Atiku had sponsored “some unserious presidential candidates” from the South in an attempt to divide the region’s votes and create an easier path for himself in the North.
However, Keyamo said the calculation had collapsed with the emergence of strong APC structures across the North in support of Tinubu.
He said Atiku was now watching his Northern strategy “dissolve like Andrews Liver Salts in water,” prompting what he described as desperate efforts to manipulate public perception ahead of the election.
Keyamo maintained that even if Atiku secured victories in some Northern states and Tinubu finished a close second, the former vice president would still struggle to win the presidency because any Northern gains would, in his estimation, be wiped out by a heavy defeat in the Middle Belt and Southern states.
The minister also accused Atiku of wrongly assuming that he could replicate the electoral performance of former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, when Buhari secured overwhelming support across much of Northern Nigeria.
Keyamo argued that Atiku had misunderstood the political realities that produced Buhari’s victory, insisting that the former vice president could not simply equate Buhari’s electoral appeal with ethnic or regional loyalty.
He further alleged that Atiku’s past political record and corruption allegations made him fundamentally different from Buhari, arguing that Northern voters would not tolerate what he described as the “putrid smell of corruption.”
Keyamo dismissed Atiku’s political calculation in a stinging metaphor, declaring: “Atiku Abubakar is a butterfly that thinks it is a bird.”
