This
statement is issued in response to the latest falsehoods to emerge from
Alhaji Atiku Abubukar. He has a record of spewing outright lies and
innuendo against my person. As we struggle to build a law-abiding
society and secure progressive outcomes for our people, we cannot allow
the triumph on these shores of those who will have us move to a
post-factual world. Not even from a man as practiced as Alhaji Atiku is
in the dark arts of damaging other people through a campaign of lies
from him and his media machine.Therefore, I am constrained to provide a
response to the fake news and irresponsible revision of recent history
by Alhaji Atiku.
I never had anything to do with the
incorporation of Transcorp. Those that established that company and
fronted it like Festus Odimegwu, Tony Elumelu, Otunba Lawal Solarin and
Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke are still around and alive. As such I could not have
and did not offer Alhaji Atiku any shares in Transcorp. I declined the
shares that were offered to me. Having done that, how could I have
offered anyone shares?
In fact, I advised President Olusegun
Obasanjo, Alhaji Atiku and then finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala not
to accept the shares that were then being offered by the promoters of
Transcorp. My counsel to them was based on the grounds that they would
face conflicts of interest when Transcorp bids for privatization assets.
At the time Alhaji Atiku and Ngozi were chair and vice-chair of the
National council on Privatization, and were particularly directly
involved in approving the sales of state-owned enterprises and assets.It
is too late in the day to try to pretend that the fiasco concerning the
attempt by then Senators Ibrahim Mantu and Jonathan Zwingina to extort
money from me for Senate clearance never happened. All Alhaji Atiku has
just done is confirm that he paid the Senators, as I revealed in Page
139 of my book.
When I published The Accidental Public
Servant in 2013, Alhaji Atiku unleashed his media team in a campaign of
vilification. Despite the viciousness of the attacks, they did not
contest or explain away his shenanigans that were detailed in the book,
from the Ericsson manoeuvre, to the Abuja water treatment plant contract
and his obsession with marabouts and their assurances of the political
big prize.He might also consider a full reckoning for what he and his
acolytes did with public funds in the PTDF imbroglio, rather than
indulging the usual bold face of the Nigerian big-man.As a federal
public servant, my oath of allegiance appropriately stood with the
Federal Republic of Nigeria, not the big men whose conduct I was
privileged to witness at close quarters. People like Alhaji Atiku think
that loyalty to them should be the goal of a public officer, and that it
should trump the oath of allegiance to the country.
Alhaji
Atiku is already running for 2019, and he thinks that he can make people
like us collateral damage in his attempt to rejuvenate his image. This
obsession for power inclined him to support the rebellion against the
party that manifested in the National Assembly, and is continuing with
obvious disrespect for the incumbent president. Everyone knows that I
support and will continue to work for the success of President Muhammadu
Buhari as he leads our country through tough times.Like everyone else,
Alhaji Atiku is entitled to rehabilitation. But that often requires
coming clean with the people. Can Alhaji Atiku explain the findings in
the report of the United States Senate Permanent Sub-Committee on
Investigations which detailed a pattern of wire transfers of more than
USD 40m from offshore companies like Siemens into bank accounts
controlled by him and one of his wives. The report detailing the US
Senate findings is online, as one of four case histories of foreign
corruption in the USA. Alhaji Atiku should tell a better tale of why he
is avoiding the United States of America.Someone as obsessed with
Nigeria’s presidency as he is, should clear up such matters
conclusively. We wait to see how well he does with that.
Signed
Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai
15th November 2016