Few hours from now, 2019 will be over. The year has been very eventful, full of intrigues, suspense and debacles. Being a political year made it more exciting as several heavyweights in the political arena were deflated and rendered useless.

There were many debacles in 2019. Some bigwigs aspiring for greatness suddenly met their Waterloo. They become the biggest losers of the outgoing year. These are:

I. Atiku Abubakar

Atiku Abubakar

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar appears to be the biggest loser of 2019. Atiku, who was one of those instrumental for the emergence of President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015, suddenly quit the All Progressives Congress, APC, and returned to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, where he launched his presidential ambition to unseat the incumbent, Buhari. He was so sure of winning, especially when the masses were disenchanted with the Buhari’s government. The APC’s campaign slogan hammered on Atiku’s ‘corruptness’ to persuade Nigerians not to vote him. The former Vice President was dubbed not being able to travel to US, but somehow, he did go to the US to the consternation of all.

The election was held on 23 February, 2019. Buhari was re-elected for a second time after defeating Atiku. Buhari won by polling 15,191,847 of the total votes cast while Atiku gained 11,262,978 votes, an astonishing victory margin of 3,928,869 votes. Atiku rejected the outcome of the election and challenged Buhari at the Presidential Election Tribunal. Atiku’s hope was hinged on a so called ‘INEC server’, which electoral results were transmitted, declaring him winner. He was embarrassed at the Tribunal as his star witness said he had never seen the server, but was told of its existence. The tribunal struck out all of Atiku’s appeal and declared Buhari duly elected. The five-man panel of the tribunal, chaired by Justice Mohammed Garba unanimously agreed that Buhari was duly elected.

Not satisfied, Atiku approached the Supreme Court for redress. On October 30, the Supreme Court dismissed appeal challenging Buhari’s victory at the Feb.23 general election. Delivery judgment, Justice Tanko Mohammad, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) led other six justices to unanimously dismiss the appeal for lacking in merit.

“We have examined all the briefs and exhibits for over two weeks and we have agreed that there is no merit in this appeal. The appeal is hereby dismissed and reasons for our decision would be given on a date to be announced,” Mohammad held.

The Supreme Court’s judgment sealed Atiku’s fate, capping a horrendous 2019 for him. He is by far the biggest loser of 2019.