How government jailed my father for not sending me to school – Atiku

Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar has disclosed how local
authorities in Adamawa State imprisoned his father for refusing to
send him to school.
He made the disclosure at the Ford Foundation Special Reunion to
mark the 80th Anniversary of Ford Foundation in Lagos.
The former Vice President revealed that like many parents of his
generation, his father attempted to stop him from acquiring
western education because he needed his help in the farm.
He said, “Although he later relented, my father was put in prison
by local authorities for refusing to send me to school. Like many
parents of his generation, he needed my help in the farm.
“My encounter with Peace Corps teachers in the 1960s had a
profound impact on my life. It helped to instill in me the virtues of
hard work, critical thinking, and commitment to excellence.
“The teachers encouraged us to develop a ‘can-do’ spirit and never
to despair in order to bring out the best in us to enable us to
succeed in life. In my young eyes those Peace Corpers represented
excellence. They instilled in me a burning desire to look to a wider
horizon to have a global outlook.
“So, my encounter with the Peace Corps changed my life and
education is responsible for the modest success I have achieved
thus far. Because of the education I received which was paid for
by the Northern Regional Government and local authorities, I was
able to rise from a small village in Adamawa to the topmost level
of the Nigeria Customs Service.
“My exposure to education encouraged me to embrace savings and
investment from very early in my career. Upon retirement, I went
into business. And when my mentor, the late General Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua, invited some of us to join politics to help restore
democracy to our country, I agreed, guided by that same “can-
do”spirit. Since then, both in and out of public office, my
commitment to democracy has not wavered”.
“The PDP of today, if you can talk of a party again as PDP, its soul
has been taken out of it and those who allowed that to happen are,
unfortunately, either in the country or out of the country
unperturbed about the fate of the party and indeed the fate of the
country.
“I have said to my brother (Sheriff), that I wish him well in the
dying baby they have put on his laps, because PDP is in comatose
and he was of course not in the PDP, he has never been in the PDP
until now.”