The former Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Atiku Abubakar has demanded an apology from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC over what he said, a failed attempted to smear his name based on malicious testimony by an alleged serial blackmailer, Mike Achimugu.
Spokesperson of the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization, Kola Ologbondiyan, made the demand at a briefing in Abuja on Thursday.
He said: “Now that Tinubu’s evil diversionary scheme against Atiku Abubakar has failed and Nigerians have seen that there is no iota of truth in his allegation against Atiku Abubakar, our Campaign demands that Tinubu should tender an unreserved apology to Atiku Abubakar, he should listen to the voice within and withdraw from the presidential race.
“If anyone is to be arrested and disqualified from the presidential race on account of corruption, certainly that person is not Atiku Abubakar but Bola Tinubu.“
He described Tinubu as an artful dodger who was trying to divert attention from his shady past with baseless allegations against Atiku whose academic, business interests as well as public service records were in the public domain.
The Atiku campaign challenged Tinubu to come clean about allegations of his involvement in the use of “Special Purpose Vehicles”, especially the Alpha Beta Company, to fleece Lagos State under the guise of tax collection.
Ologbondiyan said: “Like the age-long aphorism states, those who dig pits for the innocent always fall into them.
“This is the case in the vexatious plots by Asiwaju Tinubu to divert attention from his litany of atrocities by seeking to impugn on the impeccable character of our Candidate, Atiku Abubakar, with unfounded controversy of corruption.
“Today, the entire world has seen that the real Mr. SPV; the Corruption kingpin, the real ‘artful dodger’ of Nigeria is Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the ‘emilokan’ Presidential Candidate of the APC.
“Bola Tinubu, sensing that his many corrupt activities, especially his fleecing of Lagos State with many Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) companies was about to come to light, rushed to hire a serial blackmailer, as he has always done, to foul the public space with fabricated allegations against Atiku Abubakar.”
He said Tinubu had not only failed in his mission to tarnish the image of Atiku Abubakar, but in the process also exposed himself as the real Mr. SPV.
The PDP PCC Spokesperson further said: “Nigerians now know of how Tinubu has been desperately trying to divert attention from his alleged use of Alpha Beta Consulting Limited and Alpha Beta LPP, companies he reportedly owned by proxy, to loot N100bn tax money belonging to Lagos State, since 2002.
“It is now in public domain how Alpha Beta, which has for over 20 years held the exclusive rights to collect taxes in Lagos State in return for a commission under very shady arrangements through which it reportedly siphoned billions of naira belonging to Lagos State.
“The public is now aware of a petition before an anti-corruption agency wherein Tinubu’s alleged SPV company was reported to have used another company which shares same address with Tinubu’s office on Idowu Taylor Street in Lagos to launder Lagos State funds.
Documents sighted in one of the anti-corruption agencies reveals that Tinubu’s SPV allegedly laundered over N20 billion ($46.5m) in different currencies to several companies, including payment of N1bn ($2.3m) to company that is widely known to belong to him.
“Bola Tinubu should come out clean and speak to these damning money laundering allegations against him.
“He should explain to Nigerians how billions of naira belonging to Lagos State and meant for the welfare of the people, reportedly found its way into Soft Alliance and ended in bits and pieces in foreign currencies into domiciliary accounts allegedly owned by him in commercial banks.”
