The presidency has called on 2023 presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to stop his perennial bid for the presidency and “finally go away”.
Special Adviser to the President on Information & Strategy, Bayo Onanuga said this on Monday.
The presidential statement came on the heels of Atiku’s World Press Conference in Abuja, wherein he faulted the Supreme Court judgement that affirmed Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 election.
Atiku said that by failing to disqualify Tinubu despite “incontrovertible evidence” it was presented with, the apex court legitimised forgery.
“We showed incontrovertible evidence that Bola A. Tinubu was not qualified to contest the Presidential Election because he forged the qualifying academic certificate, which he submitted to INEC. In fact, a simple check of Tinubu’s past records in its possession would have shown INEC that Tinubu broke the law and should not have been allowed to contest the election.
“We showed irrefutable evidence of gross irregularities, violence, and manipulations during the elections. We showed incontrovertible evidence that INEC violated the Electoral Act and deliberately sabotaged its own publicly announced processes and procedures in order to illegally declare Tinubu elected. The position of the Supreme Court, even though final, leaves so much unanswered,” Atiku said.
In its reaction, the presidency insisted that Atiku’s suit seeking to overthrow President Bola Tinubu’s victory was “grossly incompetent”.
The presidency further said Atiku, 77, missed an opportunity to play the statesman and sportsman and accept, with equanimity, the verdict of the highest court and the people of Nigeria.
“Instead, he unashamedly constituted himself into a demagogue and anarchist in the way and manner he sought to pull down and delegitimise all the institutions of state, all in a futile bid to achieve what he could not get via the ballot box.
“At his press conference where he laboured, in vain, to once again manipulate public opinion and blame the judiciary for his self-inflicted defeat in the 25 February Presidential election, Alhaji Atiku launched a diatribe against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and judiciary, particularly our apex court, for not bending the law and the constitution to satisfy his whims and caprices.
“Atiku tried very hard to perfect his act of misinformation by seeking to lay claim to faux morality and higher ideals when in actual fact his entire life is antithetical to any higher ideals.
“For instance, Atiku claimed he worked along with others to end military rule in Nigeria when he was known to be in bed with the same junta who held democracy hostage and incarcerated his mentor, Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (rtd), till death. He distanced himself from him while in detention to keep alive his governorship ambition on the platform of one of those inglorious Abacha political parties.
“Atiku’s brand of politics is such that once an electoral process or election does not go his way or pave the way for his victory, democracy becomes dysfunctional and must therefore be imperiled. For him, democracy should either go his way or the highway,” the presidency said.
According to the presidential statement, the PDP candidate was uncharitable and pugnacious in his choice of words and his view about Nigeria.
“We can only imagine the level of frustration that could make a former Vice President of Nigeria to hold such pessimistic view of a country where he once occupied the second highest position. The PDP candidate said Nigeria is doomed just because he failed to achieve his personal ambition.
“We want to tell Alhaji Atiku this: Nigeria is not doomed. It is only Atiku’s inordinate ambition to be President that is doomed. Nigeria is moving forward and set to achieve its manifest destiny as one of the most respected and successful nations of the world under the leadership of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“Contrary to Atiku’s gloomy submission on our democracy, we are excited to tell the world that our democracy is thriving and blossoming. It is the reason, for the first time, since 1999 the character of our National Assembly and its outlook reflect the diversity and plurality of the choices and preferences of voters as a rainbow coalition of different parties as opposed to the practice in the past where just two parties dominated the national parliament.
“In today’s Nigeria, votes count. No amount of deliberate distortions of facts about our recent election by Alhaji Atiku and his partner, Peter Obi can vitiate the continuous improvement of our electoral process which local and international observers have hailed. As declared by the Supreme Court, IReV was not designed as an online collation centre. It was simply a public viewing centre for results.
“PDP and Atiku, including Peter Obi’s faction of Labour Party cannot continue to insist on their own reality against commonsense, logic and the law.
“Atiku and his army of hirelings knew why they lost the election. The PDP candidate lost because Nigerians preferred Bola Ahmed Tinubu and voted for him to be president. Tinubu, along with his APC, won because he offered a better vision for our country’s future. The All Progressives Congress as a united and formidable party which ran a well-coordinated campaign with his rank and file intact.
“Atiku lost because he went into a major election with a fragmented and tattered umbrella that could not hold together. There was no way Atiku and PDP could have won the election with the party platform under which he contested broken into four parts. If Atiku was not harboring a delusion of grandeur, we wonder how he could have envisaged any possible pathway to victory with Mr. Peter Obi’s Labour Party, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso’s NNPP and PDP G-5 Governors who took away possible PDP votes, while the APC went into the election as a strong, viable and unified entity,” the presidency said.
It added that Atiku’s claims of loving Nigeria and embracing integrity reeked of sheer hypocrisy “as Atiku remains one of the worst examples of kleptocracy in Africa. The US Congress lists Atiku’s money laundering as one of the very rare cases of corruption at the highest level of governance in the world.
“His avarice sent congressman William Jefferson to jail after the FBI busted a bribery scandal in which Atiku was involved from head to toe and for which he was marked down by the U.S. agency.”
The presidency said it has picked vital lessons after “Atiku’s unwarranted distraction”.
“One is that our institutions must be strengthened on diligent and sturdy wings, enough to withstand and identify from afar rabble-rousers who masquerade as statesmen.
“Second, our institutions must also ensure that corrupt, desperate, self-serving serial losers should not have a space in our democracy. Because if they don’t win the battle, they might burn the nation.
“We want to advise Atiku that after over three decades of elusive bid for the Presidency of Nigeria, he must now end his unprofitable bid and go away from any venture that will further pollute the political atmosphere and national harmony,” the presidency said.