Atiku was an Orphan by African, Islamic, and UNICEF standards-- Prof. Farooq Kperogi.

Alh. Atiku Abubakar.

Professor Farooq Kperogi is a Nigerian academic, media scholar, public speaker, and newspaper columnist. As a former journalist, Kperogi had been a reporter and news editor at many Newspaper in Nigeria.

He wrote on his Twitter timeline

I just became aware that APC goons are lampooning Atiku's description of himself as an orphan. He is right, except in conventional English. Here's what I wrote about this in a May 2014 grammar column

In many African cultures, an orphan is understood as a child who has lost one or both parents. In Islam, an orphan is someone who has lost only a father before the age of maturity. 

In English, at least in conventional English, an orphan is someone who has lost both parents.

Losing just one parent isn’t enough to call a child an orphan in English. But the meaning of the word changes when it is applied to an animal: An animal is regarded as an orphan only if loses its mother since animals have fathers only in a biological, but not social, sense.

Note, though, that in English, an orphan can also be a child who has been abandoned by its biological parents—both of whom may be alive. That means almajirai (plural form of almajiri) are invariably orphans since they don't get 2 enjoy the y the d care of both parents who're usually alive.

It's also noteworthy that UNICEF now talks of “maternal orphans” (to describe children who lost only their mothers), “paternal orphans” (for children who lost only their fathers), & “double orphans” (for children who lost both parents). I think that’s a good cultural compromise.

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