Thirty-eight days to the general elections, the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC) has restated its call for the presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, to quit the contest, even as the PDP, on Monday, demanded the arrest of the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.
At a press conference in Abuja, the council said Atiku must stand down over his role in an alleged infraction recently publicised by a whistleblower, Michael Achimugu.
Director of Public Affairs and Chief Spokesperson Festus Keyamo maintained that Atiku lacks moral latitude to occupy the exalted seat of the presidency following his alleged role in the saga.
The council claimed that Atiku and his former principal, President Olusegun Obasanjo, breached the code of conduct for public officers, and committed the offences of conspiracy, criminal breach of trust and money laundering over their role in a marine float account.
“The issue of the marine float account is not new to Nigerians. In the voice note, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar boasted that the issue of that account had been thoroughly investigated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), yet he was smart enough to escape.
“However, we note that in 2006, at the height of his public quarrel with Obasanjo over the sharing of money, the same PDP officially asked Atiku Abubakar to refund N500 million taken from that account.
“In the circumstance, since the nation now knows that the marine float account and other similar accounts were ‘SPV’ accounts, it follows that all payments made into that account were monies stolen from the public coffers. Therefore, we call on all security agencies to recover all monies withdrawn from that account by anyone for that matter.
“In the light of these very grave revelations, we call on Atiku Abubakar to immediately tender an unreserved apology to the Nigerian people and step down from the presidential race forthwith, while handing himself over to law enforcement agencies.”
Meanwhile, PDP declared that “the formation of a uniformed squad by the APC, code-named ‘Jagaban Army’, is a treasonable act. Consequently, the party called for Tinubu’s arrest and questioning.
In a statement by the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation, PDP claimed that the Jagaban Army, “set up to disrupt the 2023 general elections and raid polling units for votes on behalf of Tinubu, is a direct affront to the Nigerian Armed Forces and other security agencies, as well as an assault on the sovereignty of our nation.”
Spokesman of the Atiku-Okowa campaign, Kola Ologbondiyan, who signed the statement, said: “It is reprehensible that Tinubu can create a rogue force just to undermine the electoral and security arrangements of our nation.
“Our campaign holds that this nefarious act of the APC Tinubu/Shettima campaign lends credence to the position of the PDP and well-meaning Nigerians that Tinubu, as well as his rank and file, has set out to make our nation ungovernable and, thereafter, disrupt the 2023 presidential election scheduled for February 25, 2023, using his army of ‘Jagabandits’.”
According to the PDP, the notion of a Jagaban Army is a ploy to bring hoodlums, thugs and gangsters together, under the cover of the APC, and turn them into an official militia that will be used to unleash mayhem on the day of the election.
The PDP campaign added, “This reckless anti-democratic plot by the ‘Jagabandits’ must also be condemned by all lovers of democracy in Nigeria and across the world.
“We call on the security agencies to save the lives of Nigerians and protect our electoral process by immediately going after this dangerous formation, arresting those behind this design, and saving our nation from electoral violence.”
