Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has made an open confession about
his sex life, admitting that he was once a womaniser.
The Turaki Adamawa, who will today in Lagos slug it out with three other
candidates for the All Progressives Congress presidential ticket, said he had
managed to keep his sex drive under control.
Atiku is believed to be married to four women – Titilayo, Saadatu,
Rukaiyatu and Fatima. He is said to have married them between 1969 and 1986. He
has 30 children in all.
Writing on his Twitter page, the former Vice-President explained that
though he was a womaniser, he had refrained from smoking and drinking alcoholic
beverages.
“I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and I’ve stopped womanising,” the APC
presidential candidate stated, adding that details of his sexual escapades
would be unveiled in a broadcast interview to be aired on a television station.
The ex-VP’s confession stirred a heated debate among social
commentators, just as the post went viral on blogs and popular online forums.
Many wondered if the confession followed his recent consultation with
the Administrative Board of Catholic Bishops in Abuja.
While some online commentators argued that it was none of their business
if Atiku was a womaniser, drug addict or alcoholic, others accused him of
deploying sentiment as a tool to worm his way into the hearts of the masses,
ahead of the 2015 general elections.
A respondent, John Murphy, stated on Facebook that, judging from the
tone of his recent engagements on social media, Atiku was merely playing to the
gallery.
Murphy explained that he did not expect a respectable man to take to a
public forum and start a discourse on a subject like “womanising.”
“When you say you have stopped womanising, is it that you have stopped
keeping mistresses or you have stopped adding to your number of wives, sir?
“What is my business with that? I choose leaders based on their
capabilities, not religion, personality, region, zone and promises,” Murphy
said.
Another commentator, Dee Median, said Atiku’s sex drive or piety does
not make him a better leader than the present crop of politicians who he said
have plunged the country further into the abyss of underdevelopment.
“Honestly, we need God to give us reasonable leaders. I have concluded
that this present crop of politicians masquerading as our saviours have done us
more harm than good.
“I would be highly disappointed in Atiku, if he claims that this expose
of him is being used as a political campaign strategy. He should remember that
Jonathan told us in 2011 that he was not born rich and now Nigerians are paying
for their electoral mistake with the mass poverty which pervades the land.
“Emotions and self righteousness are not what we need as a nation.
Selfless leaders like the late anti-Apartheid leader, Nelson Mandela, would not
be caught preoccupying himself with this kind of talk. I wish him (Atiku) the
best on his new-found path. But I will rather vote a drunk that will change
this county around,” Median argued on Facebook.
Despite the public criticism of Atiku’s social media post, some online
commentators shrugged off his critics and insisted that his decision to open up
on his sex life as a public figure was not out of place.
“I see no point why people should criticise Atiku. A particular American
leader used to smoke weed. He mentioned it. And that did not make us (youths)
emulate him.
“Many men womanise(d). It is inherent in most men at a point in their
lives to want as many women as possible. There is nothing special about
Atiku’s,” online activist, Henry Okelue, wrote on Twitter, in defence of him.
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