The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 2023 presidential candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has berated current Vice President, Senator Kashim Shettima, for claiming that he (Atiku) benefitted from President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s goodwill.
Shettima had claimed that Atiku ran to Tinubu for help when he was chased out of his party.
Shettima noted that Tinubu has always been a great supporter of northerners in their quest for political attainment.
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Speaking on Thursday at the 3rd Expanded National MSMES Clinics, Ekiti 2024, held in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti
State capital, Shettima said: “When many of his (Tinubu) contemporaries were struggling to have a seat at the dinner table in Abuja, he was sacrificing his resources and goodwill energy towards the enthronement of democracy in this country.
“He has been a very veritable sanctuary for victims of political witchhunts. When Atiku Abubakar was harassed, intimidated, dehumanised and chased out of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), it was the Bourdilion he ran to for support and it was in Bourdilion that he got the needed support and he contested for the presidency of this country.”
Reacting in a statement sent on Sunday, Atiku’s Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, stated that it was Tinubu that actually benefitted immensely from Atiku’s goodwill.
According to him, if not for Atiku’s backing Tinubu’s tenure as governor of Lagos would have been rough with a wide possibility of termination of his political career.
He said: “For some time, and especially leading up to the 2023 election, there has been a deliberate attempt to distort the history of the politics of the early 2nd Republic by ascribing the AC, the political platform that Atiku ran in 2007 as Tinubu’s party. Nothing can be further from the truth.
“Vice President Shettima, obviously carried away with the euphoria of the unveiling of his official residence as Vice President, repeated the same lie.
“Shettima needs to be reminded that Atiku did not run under the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), but Action Congress (AC). AC came out of a coalition of ACD (Advance Congress of Democrats), formed by mainly PDM members and other associates and Tinubu’s faction of AD.
“Moreover, Tinubu was not in a position to lend the platform to Atiku as erroneously being suggested, as he (Atiku) was nominated by all the delegates from all the states.
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“The delegates to the primaries of the election that threw up the former Vice President as the party’s presidential candidate included Atiku Abubakar himself, Lawal Keita, Amb. Yahaya Kwande, Okwesilieze Nwodo, Alexis Anielo, Titi Ajanaku, former Governor Rasheed Ladoja, Tom Ikimi, and Dapo Sarumi. Others were Chief Sergeant Awuse, Lawan, Chris Ngige, Ango Abdulahi.
Others are; Farouk Abdul Azeez, Chief Audu Ogbeh, Chief Ejiofor Onyia, and Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, among others. From the Tinubu’s Alliance for Democracy were Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, Chief Segun Osoba, Adebayo Adefarati, and Chief Bisi Akande, among others.
“It will be appropriate for Vice President Shettima to refrain from making statements on subject matters on which he knows little or nothing about.”
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