Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP), Atiku Abubakar stirred a major controversy, after he revealed in his campaign(TheAtiku Plan) that he started out as an orphan selling fire wood – A claim the presidency quickly dismissed as a big fat lie.
I started out as an orphan selling firewood on the streets of Jada in Adamawa, but God, through the Nigerian state, invested in me and here I am today. If Nigeria worked for me, I owe it as my duty to make sure that Nigeria also works for you. #TheAtikuPlan
— Atiku Abubakar (@atiku) November 19, 2018
Lauretta Onochie, media aide to President Muhammadu Buhari on social media, in a Facebook post wrote:
“Atiku cannot be trusted; I started life as an Orphan in Jada”-Abubakar Atiku (BIG FAT LIE)
“ORPHAN-a child whose parents (Father and mother) are dead. In his book, MY LIFE (2013 pg 30) refers: Atiku said his mother died in 1984. This was when he was 38 years. He was old enough to buy mum a house.
“What’s the point of this lie? To deceive Nigerians and get their sympathy? It’s disrespectful and insulting to Nigerians for a candidate or anyone to lie to them.
“He is saying we are too gullible to find out the truth. No, we are not. President Buhari nor Vice President Osinbajo will never lie to Nigerians.”
Well, we thought to run through some facts about Atiku, that you might not have known before now.
1.Born on November 25, 1946 to a Fulani trader and farmer Garba Abubakar, and his second wife, Aisha Kande, in Jada village of Adamawa State, Atiku Abubakar is his parent’s only surviving child – His only sister died, when she was just a baby.
2.Atiku lost is father in 1957, but his parents had long divorced and his mother even remarried.
3.Atiku started school at the age of 8, after his father had been jailed and paid a fine, for refusing the young Atiku to pursue western education.
4. Taking off from Jada Primary School, went on to Adamawa Provincial Secondary School Yola in the year 1960 – And left secondary school in 1965 grade three in the West African School Certificate Examination.
5. Atiku got admitted to the Nigerian Police College, Kaduna, but left because he didn’t have credit in Mathematics. Later became a tax officer in the Regional Ministry of Finance, but soon got admission to study at the School of Hygiene Kano in 1966. In 1967, he graduated with a Diploma. That same year, Atiku Abubakar was admitted for a Law Diploma at Ahmadu Bello University on a scholarship. He graduated in 1969 and got employed by Nigeria Customs Service that same year.
6.Husband of four wives and father of 28 children, Atiku met Titilayo Albert(19-year-old at the time), while he was a Custom officer at Idi-Iroko. He secretly married in December 1971, in Lagos, because her family was against the relationship initially.
His debut into politics, was when he worked behind-the-scenes on the governorship campaign of Bamanga Tukur, who at that time was managing director of the Nigeria Ports Authority, in the 80s.
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