Atiku Abubakar
Alleged money laundering: Atiku team carpets APC says accuser ‘failed objectivity test
The campaign team of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu of sponsoring one Michael Achimugu to blackmail former vice president.
Achimugu, who claims to be a former aide to Atiku accused him of using the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPV) to usurp funds when he was Nigeria’s Vice President between 1999 and 2007.
The Tinubu’s campaign council subsequently called for the arrest and prosecution of Atiku for alleged money laundering and a breach of the penal and criminal code, an allegation the PDP presidential campaign team has refuted, saying the claims are an attempt to blackmail the ex-vice president.
In response, a spokesman for the Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organisation, Daniel Bwala, who made a live appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, argued against the culpability of the former vice president based on the evidence presented by the accuser.
“I do not think a picture showing him with Atiku is conclusive proof of relationship or that he’s with the family, but whether the content of what he’s saying is true or not and also whether he is a merchant hired by someone to execute a project,” he said.
“When a whistleblower blows the whistle, there is this thing called the objectivity test that they tend to see whether he’s acting out in the interest of peace or he’s a merchant like I said.
“He failed the objectivity test because you would see in all of the videos, audio, or whatever he releases, he would say, ‘In this campaign, don’t vote for him’. In other words, he’s politicising the information he claims he’s releasing in the interest of the public.”
However, Deputy Director, of Media and Publicity, APC PCC, Ali Muhammed Ali, defended its petition against Atiku as well as the accuser’s decision to come forward.
“It would appear that the government has no idea that somebody – a trusted aide – would record conversations and then come to the public space and expose and try to stop a man whom he thinks once he gets into the public till he will pillage our common till. So, he’s coming to the fore now with these pieces of information,” he said.
Asked to address the timing of the revelations, given Atiku also ran for president in 2019 without the allegations hanging over his campaign, Ali said, “In 2019, there was no ‘certain Achimugu’ in the fray. There was no ‘certain whistleblower’.”
According to the APC campaign spokesman, the mention of SPVs makes the call for punitive action against Atiku critical.
“The idea of SPVs, special purpose vehicles… were not there in 2019,” he said. “As far as I remember, they were not there. And there was no audio evidence of conversations about certificates and monies that would be used in certain companies in 2019. In 2023, these things are coming to the fore,” he added.
A spokesperson for PDP Presidential Campaign Council, Dino Melaye had on Monday dismissed the allegations against Atiku and said that Achimugu was never an aide to the PDP presidential candidate.
“Mike (Achimugu) is being sponsored by the APC, Mike is being sponsored by Bola Ahmed Tinubu and that is why they need to follow up for the project they started in Mike. Mike is not a media aide of Atiku Abubakar,” Melaye said on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday,
“The letters he brought online which Festus (Keyamo) is referring to are letters from support groups. It does not have the mandate of Atiku Abubakar, it is not from our campaign council and those letters were written by people that have no close ties with Atiku Abubakar.”
