- APC: “Ghosts Of His Sordid Past Continue, Restlessly, To Haunt Him; He Should Not Be Allowed Anywhere Close Presidency
- Atiku: Tinubu’s Court Record Reads At Times Like The Script Of A 1970s Gangster Film
The 2027 presidential battle has taken a dramatic turn into the past, with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition African Democratic Congress (ADC) trading explosive allegations over the records of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.
The latest war of words erupted after APC National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, urged Nigerians to “keep Atiku away from the national treasury”, citing a string of past controversies involving the ADC presidential candidate.
But the Atiku campaign, through its Director of Strategic Communications, Phrank Shaibu, swiftly hit back, challenging the APC to produce a court judgment convicting Atiku of corruption while turning the spotlight on controversies surrounding Tinubu’s own past in the United States.
The exchange has transformed the campaign into a battle over who should be trusted with Nigeria’s treasury, with both camps seeking to put the other’s historical record under public scrutiny.
APC: Keep Atiku Away From Treasury
In its strongly worded statement titled “2027: Why Nigerians Must Keep Atiku Away From The National Treasury,” the APC revived several controversies involving Atiku, including the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project, Siemens bribery allegations, the William Jefferson case, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) controversy and a 2010 US Senate investigation into financial transactions involving Atiku and his former wife, Jennifer Douglas.
Morka declared:
“Ghosts of his sordid past continue, restlessly, to haunt and warn that Atiku must never again be allowed anywhere close to such a commanding position of trust and responsibility as the presidency.”»
He further alleged that Atiku’s record represented “an executive summary of some of Nigeria’s vilest episodes of corruption and cronyism that pulverised our economy and decimated public trust.”
The APC spokesman specifically referenced the Mambilla controversy, pointing to a $500,000 payment made by Leno Adesanya, promoter of Sunrise Power, to Douglas in January 2003, around the period of the Mambilla contract.
The party also revived allegations surrounding the Siemens bribery investigation, the William Jefferson case and the US Senate inquiry, arguing that the controversies raised questions about Atiku’s suitability to occupy the presidency.
But crucially, Atiku has disputed the interpretation placed on the Mambilla arbitration proceedings. In an earlier response, he challenged the APC to identify the exact portion of the International Chamber of Commerce award in which he was found to have collected a bribe or influenced the contract.
Shaibu: Produce Conviction Or Drop Allegations
The ADC response came swiftly, with Shaibu accusing the APC of attempting to turn allegations into established convictions.
“Morka piles rumour upon insinuation, pronounces sentence in an APC press release and expects Nigerians to mistake his fury for evidence.”
He added:
“He may shout like a prosecutor and posture like a judge, but he cannot manufacture a conviction. If he has a judgment against Atiku, let him produce it. If he does not, he should stop parading his allegations as the verdict of a court.”
Shaibu described the APC attack as a “grubby attempt to conduct a trial by insult”, arguing that the ruling party’s allegations did not answer the questions Nigerians were asking about the cost of living.
“Morka has become an untutored spin doctor for a party caught in the conundrum of a sinking regime,” Shaibu said.»
He argued that allegations against Atiku should not automatically be treated as proof of wrongdoing, while challenging the APC to allow the relevant records to speak for themselves.
ADC Turns Spotlight On Tinubu
Having been challenged over Atiku’s record, the ADC campaign turned the spotlight squarely on Tinubu’s own history.
Shaibu pointed to a US forfeiture proceeding involving accounts associated with Tinubu and said the matter resulted in the forfeiture of $460,000 to the United States government.
He launched an extraordinary counterattack:
“Tinubu’s court record reads at times like the script of a 1970s gangster film: an alleged heroin network, aliases, wire transfers, accounts spread across banks and relatives whose names recur in the financial trail.”»
Shaibu immediately added that the allegations he was citing came from a sworn affidavit filed in a US federal court.
He also challenged the President and the APC to release relevant records:
“Let the relevant FBI records be released, with lawful protections for confidential sources and other individuals. Let Tinubu answer the questions their contents raise.”
Shaibu argued that a president seeking another term should be willing to allow Nigerians to scrutinise his own record.
“A President who asks Nigerians to trust him with another term for the nation’s highest office should trust them with the truth about his own record.”
From Mambilla To America
The latest confrontation follows an earlier clash over the Mambilla power project, after the APC revived the issue following the International Chamber of Commerce arbitration involving Sunrise Power and the Federal Government.
Atiku had rejected the suggestion that the arbitration amounted to a corruption verdict against him.
“But an unsuccessful explanation by Leno Adesanya does not automatically become a corruption verdict against Atiku Abubakar,” he said.
He also declared:
“The APC cannot manufacture the missing finding simply because the actual award does not provide the political conclusion it desperately wants.”
The former vice-president insisted that he was not a member of the technical process that evaluated the proposals for the Mambilla project and did not award the contract.
“So anyone alleging that I manipulated that process has a simple responsibility: show the instruction I gave, show the intervention I made, and show the paragraph of the tribunal award where that corrupt influence was found.”
2027 Campaign Turns Personal
The exchange marks another escalation in the increasingly combative 2027 presidential campaign.
Rather than limiting the contest to economic programmes, governance records and policy alternatives, the two major camps are increasingly challenging one another over controversies that stretch back years and, in some cases, decades.
The APC wants voters to scrutinise Atiku’s historical record before handing him control of the national treasury.
The ADC, in turn, argues that the ruling party cannot demand scrutiny of its candidate while questions surrounding Tinubu’s own past remain unanswered.
For Atiku, the response is that allegations must not be transformed into convictions without a judicial finding. For the APC, the accumulation of controversies surrounding its opponent is itself a legitimate campaign issue.
The political battle over who can be trusted with Nigeria’s treasury has therefore become inseparable from a second battle — whose past should Nigerians examine more closely before deciding the country’s next president.
