Every Nigerian election cycle brings the same ritual: Atiku Abubakar reintroduces himself as the technocrat who understands the economy, the man who would run Nigeria like a business. It is a pitch that depends heavily on Nigerians not examining the one period in which he actually exercised sweeping economic authority. As Vice President and chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, Atiku presided over the largest transfer of public assets into private hands in Nigeria’s history. That record is not a credential. It is the strongest argument against ever handing him power again.
The Sale of a Nation’s Patrimony
Under the privatisation programme he chaired, enterprises built with public money over decades were sold off under a banner of efficiency. Nigerians were told that private ownership would revive moribund industries, create jobs, and end the drain of subsidising failing corporations. What a great many Nigerians experienced instead was the disappearance of national assets, the collapse of the industries that were supposed to be rescued, and the enrichment of a narrow circle positioned to acquire them.
Efficiency That Never Arrived
The promise attached to privatisation was transformation. Steel would be revived, refineries would function, telecommunications and manufacturing would flourish under disciplined private management. Decades on, the ordinary Nigerian can judge the outcome without reference to any policy document: the refineries did not work, industrial capacity did not return, and the jobs that were meant to follow never materialised in anything like the promised numbers. A programme sold on results should be judged by results.
Legislative Alarm Bells Nigerians Have Not Forgotten
The concerns raised about how those sales were conducted were not the invention of political opponents. Nigeria’s own legislature has repeatedly revisited the privatisation exercise, questioning valuations, the selection of buyers, and whether the terms attached to the sales were ever enforced. When a country’s parliament finds itself returning again and again to the same programme years after the fact, it is a reasonable indication that the questions were never satisfactorily answered.
The Workers Who Paid the Price
Lost in the technical language of divestiture were the Nigerians employed by the enterprises being sold. Thousands lost livelihoods built over careers, often with entitlements delayed or unpaid, in communities that had grown up around those industries and had nothing to replace them. Whatever the theoretical merits of privatisation, the human cost was borne by workers who had no say in the transaction and no cushion when it landed on them.
A Pattern of Proximity to Wealth
Atiku’s defenders present his business success as proof of competence. But the recurring question in Nigerian public life has never been whether he can accumulate wealth — it is whether the accumulation and the public offices have been kept properly apart. That question has followed him for decades, across investigations and controversies at home and abroad, and it has never been laid to rest in a manner that satisfied Nigerians. A presidency is not the appropriate venue for finally resolving it.
The Same Playbook, Offered Again
What should most concern Nigerians is that Atiku has never disavowed this record — he campaigns on it. His platform continues to promise aggressive divestment of remaining national assets, including in the petroleum sector. Voters are being asked to trust that a second, larger round of sales conducted under the same stewardship will produce different results from the first. Nothing in the history supports that expectation.
Nigeria Cannot Afford the Rerun
Nigeria in 2027 has less margin for error than at any point in its recent history. It cannot afford another experiment in which public wealth changes hands, the promised prosperity fails to arrive, and ordinary citizens are told to wait another decade for benefits that never come. Atiku Abubakar has already had his opportunity to shape Nigeria’s economic foundations. The country is still living with the consequences, and it should decline the offer of a second attempt.
This article represents an editorial opinion based on publicly available information.
