Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has emerged as the Presidential Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party for the 2019 General Elections He defeated eleven other contenders to win the ticket.  Atiku Abubakar polled 1,532, Aminu Tambuwal 693, Bukola Saraki 317, Rabiu Kwankwaso 158, Ibrahim Dankwambo 111, Sule Lamido 96, Ahmed Makarfi 74,  Kabiru Turaki 65, Attahiru Bafarawa 48, David Mark 35, Jonah Jang 19, Datti Baba-Ahmed.

He will compete against incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari for the Presidency in February 2019.

Biography of Atiku Abubakar

Atiku Abubakar, 71,  is a businessman, who served as the second elected Vice-President of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007, on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). Abubakar worked in the Nigeria Customs Service for twenty years, rising to become the Deputy Director before retirement in 1989.

He was elected as Governor of Adamawa in 1998 but was selected by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential candidate Olusegun Obasanjo as his running mate. Atiku was sworn-in as  Vice President on 29 May 1999.

He had a rocky relationship with his Principal,President Obasanjo in his second term. He left the PDP and in 2007, he ran for President on the Platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) but lost to PDP’s Umaru Musa Yar’adua. He later moved to the then newly formed All Progressives Congress (APC) and in 2014 contested for President but lost to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. He announced his defection back to the PDP in December 2017.

Abubakar is a co-founder of Intels, an oil servicing business and founder of the American University of Nigeria.