• Atiku, Obi tackle Tinubu
From Ndubuidi Orji and Ada Nnamani, Abuja
The Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi have raised issues with President Bola Tinubu on moves by him to stop the planned release of his personal files by the United States intelligence agencies.
It was reported during the week that President Tinubu had moved to block six US government intelligence agencies from releasing documents relating to a 1993 Illinois court judgment, where he forfeited $460,000 in two of his bank accounts.
The forfeiture was the outcome of an investigation that allegedly linked some money in several of Tinubu’s bank accounts to proceeds from the heroin trafficking of one Adegboyega Akande and one Abiodun Agbele.
Speaking with Saturday Sun, one of Atiku’s aides, Dr Don Pedro Obaseki, expressed surprise that President Tinubu was seeking to stop the release of the documents.
Obaseki, who was Director of Research, Strategy and Documentation in the Peoples Democratic Party( PDP) Presidential Campaign, said it was worrisome hat the FBI allegedly has as much as 2500 pages of documents on President Tinubu, who is not their citizen. He said: “What is he afraid of? The guiltless fears no accusation. We don’t even know what they want to release. And he wants to stop them from releasing what they want to release.
“When the entire Bible is less than 1500 pages, your president alone has 2500 in the FBI, one man who does not live in America.”
Also speaking, Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 general elections, Mr Peter Obi has said that President Bola Tinubu was fond of exploiting the loopholes in the legal system to his advantage.
Speaking on his behalf on Saturday, Mr Diran Onifade, Head of Media, Obi-Datti Campaign Council said: “What do you expect to happen? It is a dispensation that relies heavily on lawyers. We had an election, his victory relied heavily on the antics of lawyers. “We went to the tribunal, it was the most wanton display of the antics of lawyers. So, it just speaks more into the style of the person we are talking about. He will always use lawyers.
“ He survives by lawyers, by exploiting the loopholes of the law rather than just straight complying with the law. He is someone who believes so much in exploiting the loopholes in the law, and he pays lawyers heavily to do that for him. So, what would surprise me is if he didn’t do that. If he just let it go like that and comply like normal people, that would have surprised me.”
The All Progressives Congress (APC) said it would react at the appropriate time.
