An insider’s view of Atiku’s campaign: The former Governor was a narcissist

The presidential election has come and gone, but not without its lessons of how not to run one. What with the musings about the treachery that played out so much so that a former Governor who worked with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) hurriedly jumped ship all, in what sources said was his desperation to have his assets, tied up in a web of investigations restored to him.
He was said to be a mole for a prominent South-West All Progressives Congress (APC) politician, who is said to be working to disentangle him from his “financial troubles” with the federal government.
An insider gave Nigeria Everyday an insight into the activities of the former governor, who is believed to be in a comfortable romance with the APC.
The insider’s views: “He never impressed many with his administrative and communicative style, even as DG of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organization, APCO.
“He cut the image of a narcissist, perennially enamoured with self-adulation. His examples and references always included the pay-off line: ‘When I was Ogun State Governor.’
“Little wonder he regularly had brushes with Segun Sowunmi, the campaign spokesperson, who shot back at him at a top management meeting and said: ‘I can also be Ogun State Governor… big deal.’
“He surrounded himself on the Atiku Campaign, with his friends and kinsmen, and even defied experienced hands recommended to him by the aspirant/candidate to help the project.
“Yet Atiku gave him a free hand as something of an Executive Director-General, at least in the run-up to the Port Harcourt Convention, on matters of administration and finance.
“It took him four months to take decisive action, even when one of the campaign directors jumped ship and became DG of the campaign of another aspirant. He continued to pay salaries to the defecting mole and took forever to replace him. Mike deserted the campaign shortly after Atiku’s declaration to run for the presidency in July 2018 and re-emerged as DG of the Aminu Tambuwal presidential campaign organisation.
“And when pressure was eventually brought to be bear on him to replace Mike, rather than co-opt one of the more seasoned and experienced information and communication hands who were already on the campaign, he deployed an advertising agency to run the media in Nigeria’s very complex media environment!
“He ran the campaign like some form of private sector bureaucracy and always alluded to the need for ‘corporate behaviour’ in the conduct of the affairs of the campaign.
“Senator Anietie Okon visited him in his office one day and was both amused and amazed that top campaign operatives were completing visitors’ forms to see Daniel!
“An exasperated Sen. Okon asked rhetorically: ‘Is this how you guys operate here? This is a political set-up for God’s sake.’
“He operated a divide-and-rule style of administration and had his own favourites, while openly discriminating and antagonizing those he couldn’t clobber under control.
“He operated a very poor communication culture. He responded to calls when he was not within the physical precincts of those who desired to see him, usually proffering the alibi that he was ‘sorting out issues in the South West.’
“His knowledge of the geopolitics of Nigeria was extremely poor. He naively believed every Yoruba man was from the South West!
“He couldn’t decipher between the ethno-cultural complexities of the country, a function of his deep-seated provincialism.
“His letter of resignation from the PDP easily gave him away even as he confessed that it was his quest for the chairmanship of the PDP and ultimately the party’s presidential campaign, which took him around Nigeria for the first time in his 60 years plus in life…
“You wonder if he would have done the same if he was Chairman of the PDP which he attempted to lead; if the vice presidential position of PDP was zoned to the South West and specifically to him; or if Atiku had won and Daniel was chairing or co-chairing a transition Committee about now”.