*Says he, not Obasanjo, knelt for PDP Govs in support of President
Citizenship News
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused former President Olusegun Obasanjo of sustaining a campaign of lies, political manipulation and orchestrated deceit against him for over 20 years which he said are “falling apart like a pack of cards.”
Atiku’s media office recalled in a statement on Sunday, August 9 that on July 23, Chief Obasanjo alleged that his deputy (1999-2007) and Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, Atiku Abubakar, mobilised the late former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Ghali Umar Na’Abba to impeach him.
The statement signed by Paul Ibe, the Media Adviser to Atiku Abubakar, also noted among others that it has become a pattern for Obasanjo to take advantage of every election cycle to throw stones of corruption, betrayal and other sundry allegations against Atiku.
“This time, he chose to make a man, who passed away nearly three years ago, the subject of his baseless allegation. He knows that the only way that Na’Abba would be able to respond to the malicious allegation is by a divine miracle in which the former Speaker is raised from the dead!
“But Hon. Abubakar Bawa Bwari, a major actor in the politics of that era, put a lie to Obasanjo’s claim. The former Chief Whip during the 1999-2007 sessions of the House of Representatives said that Na’Abba never sought Obasanjo’s removal and insists Atiku acted as his former boss’s envoy to lawmakers.”
Atiku said that contrary to the media narrative that Obasanjo knelt down for Atiku to get his support for a second term, former Governor of Abia State, Sen. Orji Kalu in a 2003 trending video revealed that it was actually Atiku who knelt down for the then PDP governors to secure their support for Obasanjo.
He said Obasanjo and his handlers had mischievously dropped into the media space a narrative that the former President was forced to kneel down for Atiku to safeguard his second term ticket.
He said in Yoruba land, it is a deep cultural taboo and a profound inversion of norms for an elder to kneel down or prostrate for a younger person.
“This, and many more, were deliberate efforts at portraying Atiku in bad light,” the statement said.
“Atiku knelt down, we were like 17 governors. He knelt down for us and said that he does not want to be disloyal to Obasanjo. That four years is like four days,” Kalu was quoted as saying in 2003.
“And to confirm that it was the PDP governors and not Atiku that were planning to upstage Obasanjo because of his dictatorial tendencies, Kalu said that everything was in motion by the PDP governors to make the Waziri Adamawa president.
“Atiku was almost a President. We had gotten everyone to postpone the (PDP) Convention and had gotten what we needed to move forward. But he (Atiku), said this man (Obasanjo) trusted him, and gave him the opportunity to work with him. That he cannot betray Obasanjo,” the former Abia Governor was cited to have said.
The statement by Atiku Media office also said that leading up to the 2007 election, Obasanjo wrote to the Senate to investigate him over alleged diversion of funds of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).
“To underscore his innocence, Atiku temporarily vacated his immunity and presented himself for the probe. The former Vice President insisted that the funds were safe in fixed deposit accounts and that the charges were politically motivated to truncate his presidential run because of his opposition to Obasanjo’s Third Term agenda.”
Atiku said also: “Writing in his autobiography titled “Awujale”, the late Alaiyeluwa HRH Oba Sikiru Kayode Adetona Ogbagba II, the Awujale of Ijebu kingdom exposed how Obasanjo used the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) under Nuhu Ribadu to hound Chairman of Globacom, Dr. Mike Adenuga in his desperation to nail Atiku for diversion of PTDF funds and for his personal benefit.
“The EFCC in Lagos had come calling brusquely on Mike Adenuga (Jnr), Chairman Globacom on 9 July 2006. They broke his gate, swarmed into his house and kept him under ‘arrest’. When I heard about the arrest, I called the legal firms of Ayanlaja SAN & Adesanya SAN as well as Professor Biodun Adesanya SAN to take up the matter and secure Mike’s release. They swung into action and gave every indication that they would take the matter to court.
“By evening, it was no longer necessary to go to court as Mike, following his statement to EFCC, had been released with instructions to report regularly to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja. Mike proceeded to Abuja, accompanied by his lawyer, Prof. Biodun Adesanya SAN,” Oba Adetona wrote on page 185 of his book.”
The statement alleged that Obasanjo was trying to use Adenuga to rope Atiku into the PTDF issue. “EFCC purportedly were on the trail of some money belonging to the Petroleum Trust Development Fund (PTDF), but there was really more beneath the veneer.”
According to the statement, Obasanjo had alleged that Atiku gave Adenuga money from the PTDF funds to pay for his Globacom licence. But it was public record that Adenuga secured a loan from BNP Paribas Bank that was paid through New York with which he paid for the Globacom licence.
