Atiku Abubakar, 2023 presidential flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has described himself as the son of a poor farmer who “ate failure like yam,” in an attempt to woo voters ahead of the next year’s election.

In a Facebook post titled “My Life”, Mr Abubakar shared a commercial that purports to tell the story of his upbringing in a manner similar to former President Goodluck Jonathan, who once described himself as a shoeless boy from Otuoke in Bayelsa State.

“In this story, the king (Atiku) was once a peasant, a humble son to parents of humble means. A farm hand on the farm, shepherd of rolling herds.

“This story is about the oath the dreamer toed through toil and tremor, tempest and tides, eating failure like yams. Some of them were hard to swallow,” the commercial narrated, adding that Mr Abubakar was “orphaned at 11.”

A former vice president between 1999-2007, Mr Abubakar has begun wooing Nigerian electorates to vote for him as the election campaign begins.

Mr Abubakar has since 1993 sought five times and failed to be Nigeria’s president, failing at party primary level three times and twice in the main elections.

At 75, Mr Abubakar will contest the 2023 presidential election against Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, the Labour Party’s Peter Obi and several others.