‘Never again’, APC cautions Nigerians against voting Atiku in 2027

By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: The All Progressives Congress APC has cautioned Nigerians against voting former Vice President Atiku Abubakar into power in the 2027 presidential election, warning that he must never again be allowed anywhere near the nation’s treasury.

National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Felix Morka in a statement on Thursday notes that the media and public discourse had been awash with damning reports of Atiku’s alleged dealings in local and international bribery and corruption schemes.

The APC described the remarks as “an open and shut reference by the former President, Atiku’s principal, to his unfitness for public office,” concluding that Atiku “was an accidental Vice President, and categorically unfit for the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

“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,” the statement read.

APC describes Atiku’s record as a former public official as “an executive summary of some of Nigeria’s vilest episodes of corruption and cronyism that pulverized our economy and decimated public trust.”

The party said the upcoming presidential election presented the electorate the opportunity to deal a final blow to Atiku’s quest for presidential power, listing a string of controversies it said spanned decades, from “the Mambilla Hydroelectric Power Project and the Siemens bribery scandal to the William Jefferson case, the PTDF funds controversy, and the US Senate investigation into suspicious financial transactions.”

The APC insisted these were not mere allegations, stating that they were “matters that are well documented in official records, tribunal proceedings, government investigations, national and foreign legislative reports, and international financial inquiries,” which it said raised legitimate questions about Atiku’s fitness for probity and accountability as a serial presidential contender.

On the Mambilla project, the statement said an International Chamber of Commerce Arbitration Tribunal in Paris had examined a $500,000 payment made in January 2003 by Leno Adesanya, promoter of Sunrise Power, to Jennifer Douglas, Atiku’s wife at the time, through an offshore company, a payment it said occurred around the period the Mambilla contract was awarded with Atiku as Vice President, adding that Atiku “declined an opportunity to explain and justify what clearly was an illegal bribe payment to his wife.”

The party also recalled the Siemens bribery scandal, in which US authorities alleged that Siemens paid at least $4.5 million in bribes to secure Nigerian telecommunications contracts during the Obasanjo administration, with about $2.8 million reportedly passing through a bank account owned by Douglas, noting that Siemens subsequently agreed to pay approximately $1.6 billion in penalties to US and German authorities over global bribery violations.

Further citing the William Jefferson bribery case, the APC said US court records indicated that former Congressman William Jefferson disclosed paying Atiku $100,000 to influence a proposed business partnership involving iGate and Netlink Digital Television, adding that Jefferson was eventually convicted and sentenced to prison.

The party also referenced a 2010 report by the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which it said linked Atiku and Douglas to more than $40 million in suspicious funds transferred into the United States through offshore companies and lodged in over 30 bank accounts associated with Douglas and her family.

APC further faulted Atiku’s shift from his 2023 position favouring fuel subsidy removal to his new promise to restore the subsidy regime if elected, describing it as “his latest device to lay his hands on, and squander, the country’s 18-year foreign reserve high of over $54 billion built up from $3 billion by President Bola Tinubu in less than four years through bold and prudent economic reforms.”

The ruling party said the treasury President Bola Tinubu had built strong was what Atiku desired “to scatter and plunder under the cover of his fake and unrealistic promise to restore the ruinous fuel subsidy regime.”

The statement also cited former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s characterisation of Atiku in his book, My Watch, as possessing “a propensity for corruption, a tendency toward disloyalty, poor judgment, and a readiness to sacrifice the national interest for selfish gains.”

It further recalled that in August 2026, Obasanjo described his decision to pick Atiku as his running mate in 1999 as the biggest mistake of his presidency, quoting him as saying, “The man I picked as my running mate, my number two, if I had known him as I came to know him later, I would not have picked him.”

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