Senate President Bukola Saraki has debunked allegations that the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, went to the United States as his aide.
The All Progressives Congress had alleged that Atiku’s trip to the US was possible because he posed as an aide to Saraki.
Saraki, who is the Director-General, Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, described the allegation as nonsensical.
He said, “These are desperate claims. When you are campaigning and you see that you have suffered a setback, just move on and don’t make a fool of yourself. To say the candidate travelled on my merit is not true.
“He applied for his visa, was given the visa and he was invited to attend functions. How do you do that? How do you travel as an aide? That is ridiculous! They know it. It is very difficult for them to respond because they have sold a lot of propaganda and lies to Nigerians.
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“I remember when we sat a lot of young people down when we started and introduced him (Atiku) as our candidate and they said they would support him because he has a good agenda for the youth and knows how to create jobs but the concern was that the government said Atiku could not travel to America and how can we have a President that cannot travel to America?
“And he Atiku always said it was not a problem but it was important for us to address the problem and put it behind us and because the other party was using it as propaganda, we decided to go to America and instead of them to keep quiet and move on, they say he went as my aide.”
The Senate President also berated the Buhari-led government for operating an opaque fuel subsidy regime.
The Senate President, who exposed subsidy fraud at the National Assembly in 2011, restated that corruption was still taking place.
He admitted that corruption thrived under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s subsidy regime but argued that Buhari’s own was worse because his government was give money to marketers with funds that were not approved by the National Assembly.
He agreed that that corruption thrived under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s subsidy regime, but Buhari’s attitude of paying marketers with funds not approved by the National Assembly is worse.