After serving an 8-year stint as vice president between 1999 and 2007, Atiku is now gunning for the nation's highest political office, same as he did in 1993, 2007, 2011 and 2015, a serial contestant.

He lost the primary election of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to Moshood Abiola in the run up to the controversially-annulled 1993 election and then came third in the 2007 presidential election after he left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the now-defunct Action Congress (AC).

Now back in the PDP, he lost the party's primary ticket to the eventual winner of the 2011 presidential election, Goodluck Jonathan.

He hopped to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2014 before losing the party's primary ticket to Muhammadu Buhari, the eventual winner of the 2015 presidential election.

Now back, again, with the PDP, on his fifth try for the presidency, the 72-year-old believes Nigerians would be making a terrible mistake if he's not sworn in as president on May 29, 2019.

Before he found his way into politics, Atiku was an officer of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), an agency he joined in 1969 after he obtained a Law diploma from the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU).

He rose through the ranks to the position of the Deputy Director (the second highest position in the service at the time) before he retired in 1989 to focus on business and politics, both things he picked up during his time in service.

Even though he started out in the real estate business, he more prominently set up a logistics company, now known as INTELS, with an Italian businessman, Gabrielle Volpi, before he retired from service.

Over the years, he's acquired other business interests in various sectors so many that he's claimed several times that he's Nigeria's biggest employer of labour.

"Since the mid-80s, my private investments have generated thousands of jobs for Nigeria – currently standing +50,000 jobs," he tweeted in 2014.

As the head of the National Council on Privatization during his VP years, Atiku spearheaded the sale of several public enterprises, an initiative that has been praised by many just as much as it has been ridiculed by his adversaries who continue to accuse him of using it to enrich himself and his cronies.

Atiku already had one leg firmly in political circles by the time he retired from service in 1989 and soon won the primary election of the SDP in 1990 to contest in the Adamawa State governorship election before he was disqualified by the military government headed by General Ibrahim Babangida.

With the return of democracy in 1998, Atiku was second-time lucky and won the governorship election, a victory he had to abandon after he was tapped to be running mate to Olusegun Obasanjo with whom he won the 1999 presidential election.

Atiku's very public falling out with Obasanjo towards the end of their second term together nearly derailed his 2007 presidential run and forced him out of the party.

While Atiku was a vocal opponent of Obasanjo's third term ambition, the then-president accused his deputy of a series of corrupt acts, allegations that continue to stick to him like a bad rash till today even though he's never been convicted.

Despite his many failed attempts for the top prize, Atiku believes he's best primed this time around to go all the way, using President Buhari's underperformance as the perfect prop.

With an estimated 91 million Nigerians living in extreme poverty, Atiku believes Nigeria needs a man at the helm who understands how to grow the economy for the benefit of all: a man like himself.

The former vice president has promised that his sound economic policies will see at least 50 million Nigerians rise from under the crushing weight of poverty, with the creation of jobs being the major thrust.

"Our vision is to transform Nigeria into a modern economy that works for its people and capable of taking its rightful place among the top 20 economies of the world. My economic policy will be job-centred especially for our teeming youth population," his policy document reads.

He's also vowed to energise the military's fight against terrorist insurgency in the northeast region, develop human capital, reduce infrastructure deficit, reform public institutions, empower women and youths, and empower the anti-graft agencies for a more transparent and balanced fight against corruption.

A major drive of the Atiku Abubakar campaign is his promise to restructure the country. He believes that decentralising power and handing autonomy to state and local governments will improve Nigeria's nationhood and make for more effective governance.

"Restructuring will devolve power and responsibility to lower tiers of government where most Nigerians live. The devolved responsibilities will create more public sector jobs at the state and local government levels. 

"It is in this sense that restructuring will increase citizen participation in government. It will increase efficiency of government through the dispersal of power because power concentration increases red tape, and delays," he said in his policy document.

The former vice president believes a restructured Nigeria will challenge the leadership to demonstrate capacity to create wealth for every layer of governance.

To make sure his restructuring agenda work, he plans to decongest the exclusive and concurrent list in the constitution, devolving social and welfare issues to states and local governments while the central government retains sole powers of policy standardisation and implementation.

Atiku has pledged that, if elected, he would start the process of restructuring the country within six months of being sworn in.

While his restructuring plan has been tagged a tall order, a gimmick to win votes, by his political opponents, his campaign promise to sell off the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has drawn accusations of a plot to sell off government properties to his close associates.

Despite having never been convicted on any corruption charges, Atiku regularly has to fight wild public allegations that he's a prolific plunderer of Nigeria's wealth, allegations he's had to defend himself against for years and throughout his current campaign run.

Irrespective of this, weeks to the February 16 election, Atiku is considered to be the only candidate strong enough to defeat President Buhari at the polls.

He had to battle heavyweights in the PDP to snag the party's ticket and has made quite a few momentous moves since then to inch ever closer to a dream that has burned ever brightly for nearly three decades.

At 72 years of age, this might be his last chance to realise that dream.