An erstwhile President Bola Tinubu’s spokesman in the Southeast, Josef Onoh, has knocked former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his alleged comments aimed at the president.
Recall that Atiku had said that President Tinubu has effectively mortgaged Nigeria’s future to himself, family and associates to the extent that even after he leaves office, it would be nearly impossible for the nation to break free from his shackles.
“Just as Alpha Beta, Primero and others act as Tinubu’s proxies in Lagos, managing critical sectors and generating revenue for him and his family, he has begun to replicate this at the federal level,” Atiku said.
Reacting, however, Onoh described Atiku as a salesman who presided over Nigeria’s privatisation programme and made millions of Nigerians jobless.
According to him, Atiku’s comments were misleading and aimed at generating resentment for the president and members of his family. He added that Atiku was the forerunner of the current hardship and poverty in Nigeria when he mortgaged Nigeria’s future to companies of his cronies and associates that robbed the country of her assets.
“Let me take His Excellency Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the world back in time and history of the atrocities of Atiku and how he crippled a nation that President Tinubu with no single fault of his inherited, a nation sitting on dynamite.
“Let’s not forget Atiku was in charge of the economy and former President Obasanjo gave him free hand until the Galaxy Backbone scandal happened.
“In 2006, the Federal Secretariat, Ikoyi, was acquired by Babalakin’s Resort Ltd., a 15-story prime asset overgrown with weeds, from Atiku and OBJ through a Development Lease Agreement (DLA) for N7.2 billion. A court asked Buhari to pay N54 billion to Babalakin for that blunder,” Onoh stated.