Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), says the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo did not shield him from corruption allegations.
Atiku, who was vice-president to Obasanjo, said he was never
convicted despite different state institutions probing the allegations.
On Friday, Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma, a former member of the
house of representatives, petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC) to reopen the allegations of financial crimes against Atiku.
Agbonayinma, through his lawyer, Hannibal Uwaifo of
Sagitarian Law Firm, gave the commission 14 days to act on the request.
The lawyer, in a letter dated August 27 and received by the
EFCC on September 1, said the request was based on an EFCC investigation and
report on Atiku between 2005 and 2006, when he was vice-president.
According to the letter, the report contained allegations of
“sleaze, money laundering, and other serious financial crimes and other
criminal acts”.
‘PETITION NOT A CONVICTION’
Responding in a statement issued on Friday by Phrank Shaibu,
his senior special assistant on public communication, Atiku said the
allegations were subjected to scrutiny by the EFCC, an administrative panel,
the national assembly and the courts.
“Let us not rewrite history. The Obasanjo administration did
not protect me. At the height of our political disagreement, these matters
travelled through the EFCC, an administrative panel, the national assembly and
the courts. The machinery of the state was fully deployed, and the political
hostility was public,” Atiku said.
“Yet no court convicted me on these allegations. That is the
record.”
The former vice-president inquired whether new information
had emerged after two decades of the initial investigation.
“So what exactly has been discovered in 2026 that Nigeria
did not hear twenty years ago? A petition is not a conviction, an
acknowledgement stamp is not evidence of guilt, and repetition cannot magically
become a judgment of court,” he said.
Atiku urged anyone with credible evidence against him to
present it for legal scrutiny.
“Anyone with credible evidence against me should bring it
out and test it before the law,” the former vice-president said.
“I have issued that challenge before, and I repeat it today
without hesitation.”
Atiku accused the supporters of President Bola Tinubu’s
administration of revisiting old files to divert attention from economic and
security challenges.
‘LET EVERY RECORD BE OPENED, EVERY ALLEGATION TESTED’
Atiku said the petition was triggered by his bid to get
Tinubu to disclose the records of his civil forfeiture case with the United
States government.
“The contrast with Bola Tinubu is almost comic. While I am
saying, ‘bring out your evidence,’ Tinubu actually went to an American court to
intervene in a case seeking FBI and DEA records concerning him, citing privacy
interests in records he argued should not be disclosed. It is like a man
ordering his neighbour to empty his pockets while keeping his own firmly
zipped. A man seeking protection for his own records has no business waving
petitions at somebody else. My challenge is simple: let every lawful record be
opened and every allegation tested. Let Nigerians see who welcomes scrutiny and
who reaches for privacy arguments when the files concern him,” the statement
reads.
“But none of this political theatre will answer the question
Nigerians are asking: why does their money buy less food, why does
transportation swallow more of their wages, why are businesses struggling, and
why are families working harder but living worse?
“The EFCC belongs to Nigeria, not to any government, party
or candidate. It should investigate genuine wrongdoing wherever it finds it,
but state institutions must never become emergency political weapons activated
whenever those in power are losing the argument on governance.
“You cannot feed a hungry family with an EFCC petition. You
cannot restore purchasing power with recycled allegations, and you cannot make
life affordable by shouting Atiku whenever Nigerians demand answers.
“The old script did not stop me then, and it will not stop
me now.”
Atiku added that Nigerians will judge all the presidential
candidates by their records in 2027.
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