ABUJA — Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said that he contested the governorship position four times before he finally won in 1999 as Vice President.
Atiku disclosed this on Tuesday during an interaction with leaders of over 200 support groups across the country, in Abuja.
Addressing the leaders of the groups, Atiku said he is delighted that more young people are now participating in politics, adding that his dream is to mentor the young generation and hand over his political structure to them.
Stressing that politics is not an easy route, he urged youths to be focused, consistent, determined and courageous in pursuing their political aspirations.
“It is encouraging that these days I see many young people come to me declaring intentions to run for various political positions, some state assemblies, some national assembly, and even some aspiring to be governors.
“The beautiful thing is that this shows that our democracy is being strengthened. I also started early like many of you.
“I started in my late 30’s. During our time, our direction was to fight the military and return the country to civil rule.
“In joining politics, you have to be focused, principled and courageous. For example, I contested for the governorship position four times before I was finally elected. That is politics for you. You have to be determined and courageous,” he said.
Atiku expressed gratitude to the leaders of the support groups for the roles that they played during the 2018/2019 election and commended the groups for their discipline and their determination to be better organised than the last outing.
“We are more organised now; it is a reflection of the fact that we are now more experienced and with experience comes more knowledge.”
“What that means is that if there was any mistake that we made last time, we are in a better position to avoid such mistakes now,” the former Vice President said.
