El-Rufai/Atiku fight breaks open, rocks APC foundation

The crisis that has bedeviled the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) took a dangerous turn on Tuesday as Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State hit former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, describing him as a man haunted by corruption demons.

El-Rufai’s outburst came barely 24 hours after Atiku, in a widely publicized interview, reopened the quarrel between him and former President Olusegun Obasanjo who is a known backer of the Muhammadu Buhari administration. Atiku had in the same interview charged at el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu, calling them out for being ungrateful and accusing both of wickedly working against his interests.

Not one to stay away from a fight, el-Rufai in a statement titled, “Atiku haunted by his corrupt demons” and which was personally signed by him Tuesday, vehemently denied any wrongdoing and described Atiku as being fantastically corrupt, daring him to visit the US. He also accused him of being obsessed for power while alleging that he was the brain behind the crisis in the National Assembly which saw the emergence of Bukola Saraki as Senate President against the wishes of the APC leadership.

“El-Rufai wrote as follows, “This statement is issued in response to the latest falsehoods to emerge from Alhaji Atiku Abubukar. He has a record of spewing outright lies and innuendo against my person. As we struggle to build a law-abiding society and secure progressive outcomes for our people, we cannot allow the triumph on these shores of those who will have us move to a post-factual world. Not even from a man as practiced as Alhaji Atiku is in the dark arts of damaging other people through a campaign of lies from him and his media machine.

“Therefore, I am constrained to provide a response to the fake news and irresponsible revision of recent history by Alhaji Atiku.

“I never had anything to do with the incorporation of Transcorp. Those that established that company and fronted it like Festus Odimegwu, Tony Elumelu, Otunba Lawal Solarin and Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke are still around and alive. As such I could not have and did not offer Alhaji Atiku any shares in Transcorp. I declined the shares that were offered to me. Having done that, how could I have offered anyone shares?

Read also: Atiku reopens old wounds, speaks on Obj’s life presidency project

“In fact, I advised President Olusegun Obasanjo, Alhaji Atiku and then finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala not to accept the shares that were then being offered by the promoters of Transcorp. My counsel to them was based on the grounds that they would face conflicts of interest when Transcorp bids for privatization assets. At the time Alhaji Atiku and Ngozi were chair and vice-chair of the National council on Privatization, and were particularly directly involved in approving the sales of state-owned enterprises and assets.

“It is too late in the day to try to pretend that the fiasco concerning the attempt by then Senators Ibrahim Mantu and Jonathan Zwingina to extort money from me for Senate clearance never happened. All Alhaji Atiku has just done is confirm that he paid the Senators, as I revealed in Page 139 of my book.

“When I published The Accidental Public Servant in 2013, Alhaji Atiku unleashed his media team in a campaign of vilification. Despite the viciousness of the attacks, they did not contest or explain away his shenanigans that were detailed in the book, from the Ericsson manoeuvre, to the Abuja water treatment plant contract and his obsession with marabouts and their assurances of the political big prize. He might also consider a full reckoning for what he and his acolytes did with public funds in the PTDF imbroglio, rather than indulging the usual bold face of the Nigerian big-man.

“As a federal public servant, my oath of allegiance appropriately stood with the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not the big men whose conduct I was privileged to witness at close quarters. People like Alhaji Atiku think that loyalty to them should be the goal of a public officer, and that it should trump the oath of allegiance to the country.

“Our Alhaji Atiku is already running for 2019, and he thinks that he can make people like us collateral damage in his attempt to rejuvenate his image. This obsession for power inclined him to support the rebellion against the party that manifested in the National Assembly, and is continuing with obvious disrespect for the incumbent president. Everyone knows that I support and will continue to work for the success of President Muhammadu Buhari as he leads our country through tough times.

“Everyone is entitled to rehabilitation. But that often requires coming clean with the people. Can Alhaji Atiku explain the findings in the report of the United States Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on Investigations which detailed a pattern of wire transfers of more than USD 40m from offshore companies like Siemens into bank accounts controlled by him and one of his wives. The report detailing the US Senate findings is online, as one of four case histories of foreign corruption in the USA. Alhaji Atiku should tell a better tale of why he is avoiding America.

“Someone as obsessed by Nigeria’s presidency as he is, should clear up such matters conclusively. We wait to see how well he does with that.

Early signs that APC may be heading for the chopping board emerged when Bola Ahmed Tinubu, acclaimed national leader of the party, called for the sack of the National Chairman, John Odigie-Oyegun over alleged poor handling of the Ondo gubernatorial primaries in which his favoured candidate, Segun Abraham, lost.

Shortly after, a cold war began to brew between Tinubu and the presidency over the latter’s claim that it resisted the former’s subtle attempt to stop the nomination of Professor Yemi Osinbajo as Buhari’s running mate in the 2015 presidential polls.

The el-Rufai/Atiku face-off, it is feared, will further rock the foundations of the APC with strong speculations that aggrieved party chieftains like Tinubu and Atiku (both BOT members) may already be working on alternative platforms in readiness for the 2019 polls.

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