Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has rejected allegations of corruption made against him by the Presidency, insisting that he has never been indicted or convicted by any court in Nigeria or elsewhere in the world.
The response followed remarks by presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga, who accused Atiku of corruption during his tenure as Vice President. Onanuga also argued that if Atiku had been a Chinese citizen, he would have faced imprisonment under that country’s legal system.
In a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku’s camp dismissed the allegations and criticized the Presidency for invoking China’s legal system in its defense of President Bola Tinubu.
According to the statement, referencing China’s judicial standards had instead drawn renewed attention to past allegations surrounding President Tinubu. Shaibu described the Presidency’s argument as a “monumental own goal,” saying it had unintentionally invited greater scrutiny of the President’s history.
“It takes a peculiar kind of unintelligence for a spokesman to set out to drag an opponent before a hypothetical Chinese court, only to end up dragging his own principal into the dock,” Shaibu said.
He argued that the Presidency had made a strategic mistake by citing China as a benchmark, noting that the country’s legal system imposes severe penalties for serious narcotics-related offences.
“Perhaps, the spokesman did not realise that the maximum penalty under Chinese law for the most serious drug trafficking offences is death. Having chosen China as his benchmark, he unwittingly invited Nigerians to examine the very standard he thought would embarrass Atiku Abubakar,” Shaibu stated.
Reaffirming Atiku’s position, the statement maintained that the former Vice President has never been found guilty of corruption, narcotics offences, or any other criminal offence in any jurisdiction.
“The facts are neither complicated nor disputable. Atiku Abubakar has never been indicted or convicted by any court in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world for corruption, narcotics offences or, indeed, any criminal offence whatsoever. That is an incontrovertible matter of public record,” the statement said.
The former Vice President’s camp also questioned how Chinese authorities would have treated the issue of the $460,000 forfeited to the United States Government in a civil forfeiture proceeding involving funds alleged to be connected to narcotics trafficking and money laundering.
Shaibu argued that China’s strict approach to narcotics-related offences and public accountability made it inappropriate for the Presidency to casually invoke the country’s legal standards while defending the President.
“China is renowned for its uncompromising approach to narcotics-related offences and public accountability. It is not a jurisdiction where the forfeiture of suspicious proceeds ordinarily marks the end of official scrutiny. More often than not, that is where scrutiny begins,” he said.
Atiku also dismissed the Presidency’s reliance on a recent response from the United States Government to Nigeria’s diplomatic correspondence, saying it could not be interpreted as proof that President Tinubu had been cleared of previous allegations.
According to the former Vice President, diplomatic communications between sovereign governments should not be mistaken for judicial decisions or declarations of innocence.
“The Presidency should also stop brandishing the United States Government’s reply to its diplomatic correspondence as though it were a judicial acquittal. Diplomatic correspondence between sovereign governments is routine. It is neither a judgment of a court, nor a declaration of innocence, nor an instrument for rewriting history,” the statement read.
Atiku further urged the Tinubu administration to shift its focus from political exchanges with opposition figures to addressing the country’s pressing challenges.
He said the government should prioritize tackling economic hardship, rising hunger, insecurity and what he described as institutional decline affecting Nigerians, rather than engaging in political distractions.
“The Tinubu administration would do better to devote its dwindling political capital to confronting the economic hardship, rising hunger, insecurity and institutional decline afflicting Nigerians instead of manufacturing diversions that collapse at the slightest contact with the facts,” Atiku said.
The exchange marks the latest war of words between the Presidency and the former Vice President, who has remained a prominent opposition figure. While Atiku’s statement strongly rejects the corruption allegations against him, it also raises fresh criticism of the Tinubu administration and challenges the arguments advanced by the Presidency in defense of the President.
The Presidency has yet to publicly respond to Atiku’s latest statement.
