Former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has challenged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to allow Nigerians to see the release of records allegedly relating to him held by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI.
Atiku made the call in a statement issued by his media team on Friday.
Recall that former lawmaker Ehiozuwa Agbonayinma on Friday issued the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, an ultimatum to begin a probe of Atiku over alleged financial crimes.
Reacting, Atiku described the decades-old allegations against him as the convulsions of political opponents.
According to him, Tinubu’s failure to defend the hardship Nigerians are enduring has forced his administration to desperately search for an Atiku controversy because it cannot survive scrutiny of its own economic record.
Atiku said the sudden return to allegations rooted in the political battles of the President Olusegun Obasanjo era was not a demonstration of strength but an admission that his opponents had run out of answers to hunger, declining purchasing power and the unbearable cost of living.
“At some point, desperation announces itself. 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. This is panic dressed up as accountability.
“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,” he stated.
2027: Allow Nigerians to see your FBI records, Atiku dares Tinubu