Atiku is a recipe for disaster, says BMO

Nigerian voters have been advised to take proper notice of unilateral actions and the serial acts of impunity by Atiku Abubakar when he was Vice President in the Obasanjo years.The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) gave the advice in a press statement in Abuja on Friday. The group said given what the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP)  Presidential candidate did with the powers he had then, it would be a disaster if he were given full powers of a President.  It said in the statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke that the former Vice President even boasted about some of those acts on National Television during his appearance on ‘The Candidate’, a live TV show focusing on Presidential candidates in the run up to next month’s electionsBMO said: “On more than two occasions during the programme, Atiku Abubakar made it clear that he took unilateral actions as Vice President that border on impunity and a disregard for all known democratic norms.“The first was his confession that he ‘borrowed’ the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) N300m at inception in 2004 from the proceeds of the privatisation exercise. What this means is that the funds were in his custody and not paid into the Consolidated Revenue Account as expected. And he did whatever he liked with it.“This is the same man who wrote the international community to complain about President Muhammadu Buhari who sought and secured approval of the National Economic Council to release $1bn from the Excess Crude Account for military hardware. We wonder which of these acts bear the mark of impunity!“The second one was the clearly undemocratic decision to deny a sitting governor a second term in office. By his own admission on the ‘The Candidate’, Atiku Abubakar and his principal were not aware that schools were shut in Anambra state for two years and the solution, in his view, was to tell the then President Olusegun Obasanjo that the state governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju ‘will never be allowed to go back’. He subsequently boasted publicly that he made sure that the governor never went back.“It is shocking that this comment came from an individual that wrote an open letter to the international community accusing President Buhari of constitutional breaches. What could be more dictatorial than determining the outcome of an election without giving the electorate the benefit of choosing who governs them?”BMO added that the impunity with which Atiku carried out his duty as Vice President and chairman of the National Council of Privatisation was also obvious from the manner government owned enterprises were sold or concessioned under his watch.“it is no longer news that his company INTELS was granted a 25-year concession to run a number of Ports in an exercise he supervised in 2006.This is clearly one of the acts his former boss referred to when he said that the PDP Presidential Candidate committed unforgivable crimes against the Nigerian people.“There is also the mess that characterised the privatisation of the Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCOM) Ikot Abasi which was built for $3.2b but sold for a pittance of $120m in 2006.That shoddy sale has since then sparked series of law suits till date”, the group said.