Ayo Oyalowo, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), has played down recent criticisms of Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by Bola Tinubu, the party’s presidential candidate.
Last Friday, Tinubu made fun of Atiku for his repeated bids to win the country’s top political position.
Atiku, who is 76 years old, unsuccessfully ran for president in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, and 2019.
Oyalowo, who appeared live on Monday’s episode of Politics Today on Channels Television, claimed that Tinubu’s political jabs at Atiku were just intended to “spice up” the 2023 campaign.
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Charles Aniagwu, a spokesperson for the PDP PCC, responded by pointing out that President Muhammadu Buhari had previously run for office four times through the newly merged APC.
“Even Charles knows that he is just making a mountain out of a molehill. Normally, in political contests, there are necessary times you throw jibes,” Oyalowo said.
“We have seen about two, three times the two men have met at the airport on different trips and we’ve seen how convivial they were. So, the jibes are just necessary to spice up the contest.
“It is not the content; the content here is, what are we going to do that we believe Atiku cannot do? That is the issue here.”
The APC campaigner claimed that while Atiku served as vice president under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, federally owned businesses like Nigeria Airways, the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria, and Nigerian Telecommunications Limited were undervalued and sold.
Aniagwu, however, claimed that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Crimes Commission were constituted by the PDP-led administration while Atiku was in office (ICPC).
“I would remind him (Oyalowo) that the PDP administration embarked on bank consolidation to the extent that today, when you put your funds in the bank, no matter what happens to that bank, your fund is safe,” the campaign spokesman said.
“I will also remind him about reforms in the pension sector. A number of times, they talk about money in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) as if that was the tree that grew in one forest.
“That money in the ECA was made possible because Obasanjo/Atiku administration was able to realise that we were getting some funds far in excess of what was budgeted, and rather than wasting it, we needed to save for a rainy day.”
