Senate President Bukola Saraki says the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party Atiku Abubakar did not travel to the United States as his aide.
The ruling All Progressives Congress had
claimed Atiku was granted an entry visa to the US because he posed as
an aide to Saraki.
Speaking on AIT’s Kakaaki programme on
Wednesday, Saraki, who is the Director-General, Atiku Abubakar Campaign
Organisation, described the allegation as “ridiculous”.
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 Atiku travelled on my merit is not true.
“He
applied for his visa and was given. And he was invited to attend
functions (in the US). 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.”
The former Kwara State governor added, “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 had a good agenda for the youths, and knew how to create
jobs. But their concern was that the government said Atiku could not
travel to America and they asked, ‘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 said he went as my aide.”
Saraki also lambasted the Muhammadu Buhari government for operating an opaque fuel subsidy regime.
The Senate President, who exposed subsidy fraud at the National Assembly in 2011, claimed the situation had not changed.
He
admitted that corruption thrived under former President Goodluck
Jonathan’s subsidy regime, but argued that the situation had worsened
under the Buhari government, because they give money that was not
approved by the National Assembly to marketers.
Share your thoughts