—Atiku Reacts, Describes Lawal as notorious conflict entrepreneur
Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, yesterday announced his resignation as member of the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
He said that his decision to quit the party was because of the conduct of the former Vice-President of Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and his emergence as the party’s presidential candidate.
Lawal said President Bola Tinubu is a better choice compared to the former vice president.
He alleged that the ADC presidential primary results were written to favour Atiku and insisted that he won’t be part of the former vice president’s rigging machine in the 2027 presidential election.
According to Lawal, Atiku is incompetent and a tribal and religious bigot who shouldn’t come close to the presidential office.
The former SGF reiterated, in a statement, that the primaries were “massively rigged” in favour of Atiku and his allies.
“I am exiting the ADC because it’s just concluded primaries were at all levels massively rigged in favour of Kachalla Abubakar Atiku. I sense a conspiracy of silence of which I want no part of. Most members of the party are behaving as if this is the normal thing to do. Results were just written or rewritten to favour him and his coven. Even where they allowed some semblance of election to hold, the winners were simply replaced with members of his syndicate. In the real sense it was a disgraceful charade,” Lawal said.
Responding, Atiku described Lawal as a notorious conflict entrepreneur, who was entitled to his political views and decisions.
This was contained in a statement from the Atiku Media office, in Abuja, which stated that while Lawal had the right to resign from ADC because political parties were voluntary associations of people, he was not entitled to cast aspersions on Atiku based on fabricated allegations.
According to the statement, accusing Atiku of religious bigotry or nepotism is one of the laziest and most ridiculous lies anyone can spread against the former vice president.
The statement explained that Atiku was one of the most liberal politicians in Nigeria and his record in this regard was there for anyone to verify.
The statement said, “As far as we are concerned, Babachir was perfectly describing his own character rather than Atiku’s. The former SGF seeks power on the altar of dividing the people based on primordial sentiments.
“All his altercations with people are caused by his selfishness. He opportunistically panders to sentiments to achieve his ambition. None of his struggles are influenced by the larger interests of his people or Nigeria,” said the statement.
It insisted that Lawal was not qualified to speak about what was good for Nigeria.
“When Babachir said he resigned from ADC because of the so-called rigging or manipulations during the primaries, he didn’t offer any proof of his allegations. And instead of offering evidence of his allegations, he went further to drag Atiku’s family into the issue which was irrelevant to the issue of primaries. It’s evident from the load of garbage published by the former SGF that he holds personal animosity against Atiku Abubakar,” the statement said.
Atiku, therefore advised Lawal to search his conscience and stop spreading division and bigotry among Nigerians for his own selfish interests.
“There is no such thing as a Muslim and Christian party in Nigeria. When the outcome of a competition doesn’t favour you, you should petition the party to show proof of manipulations or rigging. It’s however most irresponsible for a former SGF to turn himself into an agent of division,” the statement also said.
Nick Udenta
