• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Drug cartel: Atiku/Okowa campaign dismisses Tinubu’s denials

Defection: PDP welcomes Tambuwal, Kano deputy Governor

The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation, after a review of issues arising from the linking of the Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, to a drug cartel surmised that the forfeiture of $460,000 by Tinubu to the authorities of the United States of America establishes a connection to drug money.

A statement by the Spokesman, Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organisation, Kola Olugbondiyan, the Campaign Council maintained “that Nigeria as a nation cannot afford to allow an individual with the remotest link to a drug cartel near the Presidential Villa.

“We insist that the mention of Asiwaju Tinubu’s name in a crime bordering on drugs and consequent upon which some monies were forfeited, raises a moral question and issues of serious security threat.

“How, for instance, will our nation cope with a President who will be consistently harassed, intimidated and blackmailed by a drug cartel?

Ologbondiyan also noted that it disturbing that Tinubu’s handlers are running around an ocean of excuses from where they have been fetching what they believe will convince Nigerians.

Read also: Bwala knocks Keyamo over Tinubu’s defence

“We ask; what business was Asiwaju Tinubu running that such a whopping sum of $460,000 would be deducted as tax from his account?”

According to him, “It is easily deductible that the $460,000 removed from the account represented the illicit fund that accrued from the drug. That accounts for the reason why no other sum was removed from the account contrary to argument from Tinubu’s minders that the amount represented a tax.

“If indeed, like Asiwaju Tinubu’s handlers have said, Tinubu “took responsibility” for drugs money, it goes without saying that he must also take responsibility for the consequences of that action,” he said,

Also briefing Journalists earlier, the Coordinator of Strategic Communications of the Campaign Council, Dele Momodu, expressed confidence that peace will soon return to the party, as the integrity group, led by Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, said “the window of reconciliation has not been shot permanently.”

“We’ve been at it for some time trying to see how we can bring everybody under the same umbrella. So hopefully, in the next couple of days and weeks, all of us will be able to work as one family. PDP is the biggest political family in Africa and we want it to remain so.”

Momodu, who also spoke on the attacks on the Atiku’s campaign team in Borno on Wednesday, said the party was compiling its evidence with a view to making a formal complaint to the security agencies and the National Peace Committee.

“We’ve been attacked in Kaduna and it’s so unfortunate because there was a peace accord that was signed by most of the presidential candidates.

“So we plan to report formally to the security authorities, we plan to report to the Peace Commission because democracy is not by force, it is a game of choice. So, if I choose to support my candidate, there shouldn’t be any problem about that. So firing den guns, throwing stones and all manner of weapons, for me, is a very unfortunate development.

Momodu, who noted that the party is “worried” over the recurring attacks, appealed to the media “to help us send the message across to the authorities that PDP is worried.

“My heart goes out to one of our colleagues, Mary Chinda of Arise News who sustained injury, in fact I’ve just seen an x ray of our arms, so I hope nothing serious happened to her because she fell in the process of that attack yesterday.”