Atiku Abubakar GCON was born November 25, 1946 in Jada. Atiku is a Nigerian politician and businessman who served as the vice president of Nigeria from 1999 to 2007 during the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo.

He ran as governor of Adamawa State in 1990, 1996, and in 1998, when he was finally elected before he became Obasanjo's running mate during the 1999 presidential election and was re-elected in 2003.

Atiku Abubakar ran unsuccessfully for President of Nigeria six times, in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023.

His father was opposed to the idea of Western education and tried to keep Atiku Abubakar out of the traditional school system. When the government discovered that Abubakar was not attending mandatory schooling, his father spent a few days in jail until Aisha Kande's mother paid the fine.

At the age of eight, Abubakar enrolled in the Jada Primary School, Adamawa. He was admitted into Adamawa Provincial Secondary School in1960. He graduated from secondary school in 1965 after he made grade three in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination.

He graduated with a Diploma in 1967, having served as Interim Student Union President at the School of Hygiene. He later enrolled for a Law Diploma at the Ahmadu Bello University Institute of Administration.

In 2021, Abubakar successfully completed and passed his Master's degree in International Relations at Anglia Ruskin University.

Abubakar has four wives and twenty eight children. In 1971, he secretly married Titilayo Albert, in Lagos despite her family opposing the marriage. Her children include; Fatima, Adamu, Halima and Aminu.

In 1979, he married Ladi Yakubu as his second wife. He has six children with Ladi: Abba, Atiku, Zainab, Ummi-Hauwa, Maryam and Rukaiyatu. In 1983, he married his third wife, Princess Rukaiyatu, daughter of the Lamido of Adamawa, Aliyu Mustafa. The children from her are: Aisha, Hadiza, Aliyu (named after her late father), Asmau, Mustapha, Laila and Abdulsalam. Abubakar later divorced Ladi, allowing him to marry, as his fourth wife (the maximum permitted him as a Muslim), Jennifer Iwenjiora Douglas.

In 1986, he married his fifth wife (only his fourth legal wife at the time, owing to his earlier divorce from Ladi), Fatima Shettima. Her children include: Amina (Meena), Mohammed and the twins Ahmed and Shehu, the twins Zainab and Aisha, and Hafsat.

In 2022, Atiku Abubakar emerged as the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for 2023 election after he defeated 12 other candidates in a keenly contested presidential primary held at the Moshood Abiola Stadium in Abuja on May 28, 2022.

Of the 767 accredited ballots at the election, Atiku polled 371 votes while his closest challenger, Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, came second with 237 votes. Nigeria's former Senate President, Bukola Saraki, scored 70 votes to come a distant third while Governor of Akwa Ibom, Udom Emmanuel, came fourth with 38 votes.

He went on to contest the presidential election where he emerged second after Bola Tinubu beat him to become the President of Nigeria.

MyNigeria/Wikipedia