Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has described the presidency’s attempt to invoke China in attacking him as a “monumental own goal,” saying the comparison has only exposed President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to greater public scrutiny.
In a statement issued on Saturday by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said it was ironic that while the presidency has been “parading the United States government’s routine reply to its diplomatic correspondence as though it were a love letter, a trophy, and a certificate of innocence rolled into one,” its spokesman carelessly introduced China into the debate.
“It takes a peculiar kind of unintelligence for a spokesman to set out to drag an opponent before a hypothetical Chinese court, only to end up dragging his own principal into the dock.
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“Perhaps the spokesman did not realise that the maximum penalty under Chinese law for the most serious drug trafficking offences is death. Having chosen China as his benchmark, he unwittingly invited Nigerians to examine the very standard he thought would embarrass Atiku Abubakar,” the statement said.
Atiku stressed that he has “never been indicted or convicted by any court in Nigeria or anywhere else in the world for corruption, narcotics offences or, indeed, any criminal offence whatsoever. That is an incontrovertible matter of public record.”
The presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) said if the Presidency insists on using China as the yardstick for accountability, then Nigerians are entitled to ask what Chinese authorities would do in a case involving the $460,000 forfeited to the United States government in a civil forfeiture proceeding alleged to be connected to narcotics trafficking and money laundering.
“China is renowned for its uncompromising approach to narcotics-related offences and public accountability. It is not a jurisdiction where the forfeiture of suspicious proceeds ordinarily marks the end of official scrutiny. More often than not, that is where scrutiny begins.”
Atiku further argued that the Tinubu administration should also acquaint itself with China’s treatment of corruption and abuse of office.
“Not in China would a President sign into law a national budget immersed in scandals, padding and duplicitous appropriations. Not in China would a President look the other way while a senior presidential aide faces grave allegations of creating a fake government agency.
“Not in China would a government campaign on Renewed Hope only to deliver renewed hardship to its citizens. These are precisely the reasons the Presidency should have been more circumspect before invoking China.”
The former Vice President also faulted the Presidency for “brandishing the United States Government’s reply to its diplomatic correspondence as though it were a judicial acquittal.”
“Diplomatic correspondence between sovereign governments is routine. It is neither a judgment of a court, nor a declaration of innocence, nor an instrument for rewriting history.”
He said that the lesson is clear: “Those who invoke China must be prepared to accept the Chinese standard—not selectively, not rhetorically, but completely. Accountability is not a buffet from which governments choose only the dishes they find palatable.”
Atiku urged the Tinubu administration to focus on “confronting the economic hardship, rising hunger, insecurity and institutional decline afflicting Nigerians instead of manufacturing diversions that collapse at the slightest contact with the facts.”
He urged the Presidency to elevate the quality of its public communication, noting that while propaganda may dominate a news cycle, facts ultimately prevail.
In a statement on Thursday titled ‘When Will Atiku Abubakar Report Himself to President Trump?’, the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, has said that, “A man with such a dismal record as a public servant certainly has no business asking for our votes. Indeed, if Atiku Abubakar were a Chinese, he would be rotting away in jail for his crimes against the Nigerian people.”