A spokesperson for the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Council, Senator Dino Melaye, in this interview on Channels TV ‘Politics Today’, monitored by Deborah Onyofufeke, defends the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, following the allegations on money laundering levelled against him by one of his estranged aide, the Michael Achimugu. The spokesperson argues that Achimugu’s revelations are all false and the manipulations of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC)
Officially, how does your campaign council react to the position of the APC, first, they’ve asked your candidate to withdraw from the race based on the allegations made by Mr Michael Achimugu
I want to start by saying it is a very laughable press conference, this has completely shown the desperation of the APC, this has shown their satanic manifestation, this has shown that they’ve all accepted that Atiku is the leading presidential candidate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, they have no other credible means of campaigning or trying to fight the PDP than to Orchestrate lies from the pit of hell. Even from what Festus Keyamo just said, he said they have evidence of letters of appointment that Atiku Abubakar, gave, which is fallacious, that is malicious and that is a lie from the pit of hell. The letters that the so-called Mike paraded are letters from two support groups, one from TEECOMM and one from Atiku Support Group and we are saying that if you claim to be an aid, you are saying you are an aid of Atiku Abubakar, you will have a letter of appointment. I am the spokesman of Atiku Abubakar, I have a letter of appointment signed by Atiku Abubakar, appointing me as the spokesperson and the director of public affairs of the presidential campaign organization of the PDP, I have a letter signed by the ;Director General of the campaign council, so where is the letter appointing him as an aid and it is so shameless that Festus and the other jesters will come on tv, and then begin to say that there was an evidence of a letter appointing him as an aid but let’s not even go into that, it is very funny, that issues of life were put together, Atiku Abubakar is one of the most investigated Nigerians, today, this is the first time in the federal republic Nigeria, that I will see blatantly, that an armed robber will be accusing an innocent citizen, I mean a man who has criminal tendencies, a man who is a convicted criminal by virtue of the money that was confiscated over 340 million naira was confiscated In Tinubu’s account as a drug lord in America, not only a drug lord, he is a suspected addict of same drug, a man who faced code of conduct for criminal activities, a man who has over a dozens of petitions waiting for him in ICPC and EFCC, will accuse a man who has never been invited by either code of conduct, ICPC, or EFCC, a man that has been investigated and never been indicted by any court of law, he has never even be prosecuted in any court of law in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. These distractions are not important to us, instead of them to talk about how they will help Nigeria to vote PDP to ameliorate and palliate the satanic manifestations of APC, to correct the issues of insecurity, they are trying to cover up for the bad administration of APC for eight years by raising unnecessary lies and issues that are completely baseless. Honestly, we have no reactions to the heaps of lies, we have no reactions to comedy, we have no reactions to the so-called jesters putting themselves together and eroding the lies of one individual who is a known blackmailer all over this country.
Is Michael Achimugu a known person to Mr Atiku Abubakar?
I just answered in my initial response and I told you that Festus Keyamo corroborated a lie of Mike and that has given us the foundation of where Mike Achimugu started. He is being sponsored by APC, and Mike is being sponsored by Bola Ahmed Tinubu and that is why they are doing a follow-up to a project they started in Mike. He is not a media aide of Atiku Abubakar, the letters he brought online and produced which shamelessly and myopically Festus is referring to are letters from support groups. I can reside in this room and say that three other people are setting up a support group for Atiku Abubakar that does not have anything to do with the mandate of Atiku Abubakar, it has nothing to do with our presidential campaign council and those letters were written by people that have no close official administrative ties to Atiku Abubakar and surprisingly, only in Nigeria will people be reacting to this type of frivolous unfounded stories. I am telling you as an individual that he was never an aide. Media Aides make releases on behalf of their principals. I am speaking on behalf of Atiku Abubakar because I have the mandate to do so. Let him show us, where is his mandate. Where is his letter? To speak for Atiku Abubakar at any time. A man who is a blackmailer and in this era of technology where the head of Tinubu can be removed from the picture and you put the head of Shettima, is in a time like this where there is voice-over.
So, what your principal is saying to Nigerians is that he doesn’t have any relationship whatsoever, with Mike Achimugu and he doesn’t know him at all. Is that the statement coming from your principal?
Atiku Abubakar is not only the former vice president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, but he also is the most popular Nigerian today on earth and people meet him on the street on daily basis, we travelled on the streets of London, people were stopping him to take pictures with him. So, if you see Atiku Abubakar now and take pictures with him or you interacted with him for a minute and go outside now and say you are his close aide- that is not acceptable. What I am saying in essence as an investigative journalist, go and carry out with due diligence, every statement made by that boy sponsored by the APC to create unnecessary distractions, Festus Keyamo said he has gone to court, he has written petitions in his name, they are the ones orchestrating this thing. A man, who needs to resign is a man who is not healthy, the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria has said for you to be the president of this country, you must be physically and mentally fit. Tinubu is not physically fit, he is not mentally fit and he has been indicted of criminal activity in America where over $460,000 has been confiscated from his account, we have evidence of his criminality, and we have evidence of his indictment. What is he still doing around saying that he wants to be president, instead of them apologising to Nigerians and the man withdrawing, they are taking of an innocent Nigerian who is coming to salvage our woes?
What I want us to establish is, is whether or not your candidate is saying that he has never had any relationship whatsoever with Michael Achimugu
That is what I am telling you now my candidate has never had any relationship with Michael Achimugu and he is not an aide of Atiku Abubakar, these are all orchestration of the APC.
Have you listened to or watched the tapes that were released by Michael Achimugu online?
Precisely the one involving allegedly the voice of the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, in a telephone conversation where Michael Achimugu said he was trying to establish and extract a direction from the former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on how to respond to those who alleged that the former Vice President is corrupt and was asking in respect of a certain company which in that tape, the tape said it was a special purpose vehicle. This voice is alleged to be Atiku Abubakar. Have you listened to that tape and can you tell us whether or not that is Atiku Abubakar’s voice? That recording and manipulation must have been done either in Burdilon or in the studio of TVC.
So, that is not Atiku Abubakar’s voice?
Technology these days, let me tell you there is something called voice-over technology. I can plant your voice, I can manipulate your voice, I can orchestrate your voice and I’m telling you that everything that has been orchestrated, presented by Michael Achimugu, are fallacies, lies, malicious lies from the pit of hell and I’m telling you that Nigerians should not be distracted by this issue of lies. You should confront the APC with their massive failure in Nigeria, in Lagos. They should confront them with the issue of insecurity, issues of hunger, and issues of kidnapping, with the issues of disunity that they have brought upon Nigeria. This is a strategy to distract the general public from the issues that are on the ground, diverting the attention of the electorates from the upcoming elections. We should not be distracted about that, Atiku is not going to respond to such heaps of lies, Atiku is busy selling his agenda to Nigerians, he’s busy communicating with the electorates. He’s busy telling them I will take you from the Land of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan, he’s trying to tell Nigerians that by the grace of God, all our issues will be solved, the issues of insecurity will be solved, housing and unemployment will be solved. That I will bring peace back to this land. That is what Atiku is selling to the public and that is what we want to be concerned about, that is what we want to speak about, not distractions that were manipulated by the APC to create unnecessary distractions.
Some tapes have been released allegedly belonging to the children of Mr Atiku Abubakar. Now, you’ve denied and said that the voice that was heard and released by Michael Achimugu is not that of Atiku Abubakar, the ones released allegedly to be those of the children of Mr Atiku Abubakar. What can you say about those?
I don’t speak for the children of Atiku Abubakar, I speak for Atiku Abubakar.
So, you don’t know any of his children and you don’t know whether those voices sound like theirs?
I speak for Atiku Abubakar and I’m telling you that a man who has lied about Atiku Abubakar will lie about anything.
I’m not sure this is the first time you are hearing the name of the company that has been brought into this conversation and some of the names that have been brought into this, particular conversation. If you are denying that all of these things that Michael Achimugu is raising are not true, would you allow this thing to slip? Are you taking any legal action in this because if anybody is raising any frivolous allegations against you, you are a graduate of law senator, will you allow it to slip?
Anyway, I want to say don’t take Panadol for another person’s headache, I want to assure you that the man who is making these allegations have more than three cases in court already of blackmail. He has a case in court against Alhaji Aminu from Kogi State, who he blackmailed to collect money from, he has a case that is popularly known on Facebook and social media against a woman that he defrauded. I want to announce to you that either myself as a spokesperson, or the PDP as a party after today will not react to any question coming from this blackmailer. After today we will not react to it so, I want to tell you categorically that we are concerned about the forth coming election, we are concerned about bringing back the long lost reputation of this country, we are concerned about uniting this country, we are concerned about restructuring this country, we are concerned about giving Nigeria community policing, we are concerned about finding jobs for the teeming unemployed youths of this country, we are concerned about the health care status of this country, we are concerned about building a new security architecture that will protect Nigerians and people will go to their houses and sleep, we are concerned about this economy of this country and this m is what the APC do not want us to speak about and that is why they commissioned this known professional blackmailer to come up with this and they will now follow up with what they are following up with surprisingly, the petition to EFCC and ICPC was written from the office of Festus Keyamo, a serving minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, they are so myopic, so porous, so intellectually stagnant that they cannot even portray in a civilized manner. We have seen beyond their games and that’s why we are not going to be concerned or respond to frivolous beer parlour issues. Atiku Abubakar by the grace of God, with the popular mandate of all Nigerians, will be the next president of Nigeria and they should rather advise their candidate to withdraw from the race because he has no competence or capability to be the president of Nigeria. He cannot wear oversized shoes. In Nigeria today, we cannot have Pablo as our president and then have Osama Bin Laden as our Vice President. Where will it end us? Where will it get to? So, by the grace of almighty God, we will be focused on our campaign, we will be focused on the problems that are bedevilling this country created by the APC. We do not want now that they have taken us to be the poverty capital of the world, we would not want to be the drug capital of the world. A drug baron cannot be the president of the federal republic of Nigeria.
