The candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) in the 2027 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has said President Bola Tinubu and his media handlers are desperately searching for an Atiku controversy because they cannot survive scrutiny of their own economic record.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the sudden return to allegations rooted in the political battles of the Obasanjo era was not a demonstration of strength but an admission that the Tinubu administration has run out of answers to hunger, collapsing purchasing power and the unbearable cost of living of Nigerians.
The former Vice President said the All Progressives Congress (APC) led Federal Government has resorted to recycling decades-old allegations against him because it is unable to defend the hardship Nigerians are enduring and now
“When those defending this government can no longer explain why food, transportation, electricity, rent, education, insecurity and healthcare are increasingly beyond the reach of ordinary families, they rummage through twenty-year-old files looking for an escape route,” he stated.
The ADC candidate reminded President Tinubu that at the height of his political disagreement with former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the petitions now being recycled went through the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (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, adding that he was not found guilty by any court on these allegations.
“The Obasanjo administration did not protect me,” he stated, and wondered what new evidence Tinubu and the APC would discover in 2026 that Nigeria did not hear 20 years ago.
“A petition is not a conviction, an acknowledgement stamp is not evidence of guilt, and repetition cannot magically become a judgement of court.
“Anyone with credible evidence against me should bring it out and test it before the law,” he added.
He challenged Tinubu to do the same, noting that while he was calling on any Nigerian who has any evidence against him to disclose it, President Tinubu asked an American court to intervene in a case seeking Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) records concerning him, citing privacy interests in records he argued should not be disclosed.
“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 former vice president stated.
He told the president that the EFCC belongs to Nigeria, not to any government, party or candidate, and therefore, should be allowed to investigate genuine wrongdoing wherever it finds it.
Atiku warned that state institutions should not 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,” he said.
The ADC candidate added that if the old script did not stop him from contesting the 2007 presidential election, it will not stop him 20 years after.
“In 2027, Nigerians will judge us by our records, the lives they are living and the future we offer them.
“Those afraid of that judgement may continue rummaging through the archives. We are facing the Nigerian people,” he stated.
