Atiku returns to PDP?

Aside from the fact that Nigerian politics as currently practiced bear no relationship whatsoever to the Nigeria's strategic, political, economic, social and cultural interests, there is the fact that our politics are cartoonic.

Embedded in this speculative article by Daily Trust is the rumour/suspicion that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar could return to the Peoples Democratic Party.

It wouldn't surprise me, as counter-intuitive as it might seem to anyone who expects linear rationality in the politics of the federal republic. Does anyone expect linear rationality in Nigerian politics? If you do .... seek help.

According to the rules of rotation, "the South" has had 8 years (Obasanjo) so "the North" must have 8 years. Whatever happens between now and April of 2011, current President Umaru Yar'Adua is NOT going to be a candidate in the 2011 Presidential Elections.

So that means someone else from "the North" will have to take the balance of 4 years from 2011 to 2015.

Mohammedu Buhari is popular in some parts ... but so is Ojukwu, and to be honest, I do not know why they both keep running.

Atiku Abubakar is as corrupt as .... well, Atiku is as corrupt as Obasanjo, but in Nigerian politics that does not really count for much, does it? Atiku was driven out of the PDP by Obasanjo, but lots of people who were variously driven out of the PDP have returned to the party. Significantly much of the PDP hierarchy and membership acted under compulsion between the fall of the Third Term agenda and the "election" (if you can call it that) of the Yar'Adua/Jonathan administration; a truer picture of their feelings for Obasanjo lay in the rejection of the Third Term agenda.

Atiku still has friends in the PDP, as well as friends among the sole proprietorship parties like Orji Uzor Kalu (PPA), Bola Ahmed Tinubu (AC) and Attahiru Bafarawa (DPP). This hybrid situation, with President Yar'Adua still technically the head of state, while Acting President Jonathan is dissolving cabinet as though an election had ushered in a new regime, many in the Nigerian political system would actually prefer a known entity, a stabilizing figure, someone the Big Men are comfortable with, that has enough public recognition to generate an apathetic "well, of course they would choose him" reaction from the public.

After all ... that is how Obasanjo became president in 1999, isn't it?

EDIT 31-03-10: Daily Trust reports Atiku has begun "consultations" with his "supporters" around the country. Supposedly he is seeking their opinion on whether or not to rejoin the PDP. This being Nigeria, where politicians claim they only seek office because their people asked them to, or because God asked them to, I conclude Atiku and the PDP national leadership (or factions thereof) have already concluded arrangements for Atiku to rejoin the PDP. These so-called "consultations" are a ruse for Atiku to say the only reason he is going back is because his supporters asked him to, when in fact he is going back to replace Umaru Yar'Adua on the ticket in 2011, to fulfill the second half of this eight-year period in the federal republic's regional "rotation" system.