1. Growing up without his father, he endured a childhood of hardship, forced to learn resilience at an early age.
2. At a young age, he developed a keen
sense of responsibility, taking over the welfare of his mother and building her
a house by the time he was in his 20s.
3. A love for western education and for
personal development motivated him to attend school and learn against all odds.
4. A love for God extended his passion
for education to studying the Qur’an, giving him a solid religious foundation.
5. Being an only child led to his
passion for family and for family values, expressed in his devotion and
attention to each of his 30 children.
6. As a teenager, he demonstrated
exceptional courage and selflessness when he took part in resolving a knotty
dispute in the school he attended.
7. His humility and friendly demeanour
began to win him scores of loyal friends, the majority of whom have remained
close to him from his youth till today.
8. In appreciation of his leadership
role and peace-making efforts at the Kano State School of hygiene, he was
unanimously elected as the president emeritus of the school’s student union.
9. His leadership ability was nurtured
through active participation in school unionism and activism.
10. His belief in the strength of unity
and togetherness over ethnic and tribal divisions has made him a converging
point for visionary Nigerians of all tribes and tongues. Each of Nigeria's main
ethnic groups (Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo) is represented in the place of origin of
the four wives he is allowed by Islam to marry.
11. He is the highest employer of
labour in his home state of Adamawa, northeast Nigeria.
12. Next to the state government, he is
the highest employer of labour in Port Harcourt, Rivers State in south-south
Nigeria.
13. For the past five years since the
Boko Haram insurgency exploded in northeast Nigeria, he has made regular and
continuous donations to the welfare of the victims of terrorism.
14. His desire to extend the immense
benefits he gained from education led to his founding of a nursery, primary,
secondary school, and later the American University of Nigeria, Yola, which is
Africa's first development university.
15. He endured threat to life and
property to fight against the military dictatorship of the late SaniAbacha.
16. The democracy that Nigerians enjoy
today may have been snatched from beneath their noses if he had not intervened
to block attempts by former president, OlusegunObasanjo, to seek a Third Term
in power and possibly alter to constitution make way for no presidential term
limits.
17. He has a long history of success in
everything he does, leading some to describe him as having a Midas touch.
18. Long before the lure of oil began
to dim among Nigerian tycoons; he saw the potential in agriculture and
established a grand farm.
19. His initial agricultural
entrepreneurship effort of decades ago was eventually strangled by unfavourable
government policies but, not being one to ever give up, he did. It let his
vision die. Over the past five years, he has set up successful feed-producing
plants.
20. The immense wealth he generates
from multiple business enterprises which span various sectors from oil and gas
servicing to agriculture, have been spread far and wide. His generosity to
individuals and organisations is legendary.
21. In his position as Vice President
of Nigeria, he was initiated the birth of renowned national institutions such
as the EFCC.
22. Never threatened by allowing others
to shine, his sharp eye for detecting talent brought a number of today's
well-known names in Nigeria to the limelight, such as NuhuRibadu and Nasir
el-Rufai , among others.
23. Ever forgiving, he is always
willing to let a slight or betrayal slide, even when from those he has helped
to the top who then succumb to the sway of alliances from people who promise
them heaven and earth as a motivation to turn against Atiku.
24. A godfather extraordinaire, the
story of politics in Nigeria over the past two decades cannot be told without
the mention of Atiku's name. Even those who hate his guts know that he must
play a significant role for their ambitions to materialise.
25. Numerous witch-hunts and trumped up
corruption charges have yielded no persecutions or indictments. With the God of
truth and justice on his side, Atiku's enemies have continued to fail woefully
in their attempts to nail him. And only recently the United State Department of
Justice said it has no criminal case against him following media enquiry by
Punch Newspaper. How many other prominent Nigerians could have survived the
kind of vigorous smear campaign that he has endured?
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