Atiku Abubakar and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the candidates for president of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC), have been exchanging barbs and insults. Atiku has issued a challenge to Tinubu, daring the former governor of Lagos State to sit down and give an hour-long interview like he (Atiku) did last Friday.
The most recent attack came from the Atiku campaign in response to a statement made earlier on Saturday by the Tinubu Campaign Organisation (TCO), which criticised him for some of the points he made in the Arise TV interview.
In the interview, Atiku had said Tinubu insisted on a Muslim-Muslim ticket in 2007 when they were both in the Action Congress (AC) but in a reaction, TCO in a statement by its Director-General, Bayo Onanuga, had labelled Atiku a “pathological liar” who was “full of hypocrisy, spreading falsehood and of having a poor grasp of history and current affairs.”
While responding to the accusation by the TCO, Atiku’s media aide, Paul Ibe, in a statement on Saturday night, challenged Tinubu to “subject himself to an hour long interview” if he was “mentally present and articulate enough to do so.”
In the statement entitled “We Challenge Bola Tinubu To Take The Hot Seat,” Ibe said:
“We were rather amused to read the knee jerk response from the Tinubu Campaign Organisation to the wave making interview granted by Waziri Atiku Abubakar to Arise TV.
“Amusement, because we expected this. Mr. Tinubu has not sat down to do any prolonged interview for obvious reasons. Nigerians have seen him talk in public and can themselves gauge the reason why he is mortified to do so.
“Nevertheless, I will now take the issues in their statement one after the other.
“The Tinubu campaign exposed its gross desperation and vacuousness by citing the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) 1999, to declare Waziri Atiku Abubakar’s stance on engaging in a side business while he was a young custom officer as a breach of the law.
“It is pertinent to educate the Tinubu campaign organisation that Nigeria is not under a military regime and our Constitutions are not retroactive in nature.
“The rude response also accuses Waziri Atiku Abubakar of having “limited education”. Atiku Abubakar has an earned Masters degree from Anglia Ruskin University.
“We challenge any of the present Presidential candidates to present an equal or higher degree. Moreover, his university attendance is a matter of verified record. Can we say the same about some other persons?
“On President Lincoln, we are afraid the poor student of history is the Tinubu campaign disorganisation. Yes, it is true that Lincoln ran for President with his name on the ballot twice. But he ran at other times, and failed to get his name on the ballot.
“In conclusion, we would like to challenge Bola Tinubu to subject himself to an hour long interview, like the Waziri did, and if he is able to be as articulate and mentally present as our candidate, then he can talk.
“Until then, we will only want to remind him and his yes men that they are not in a position to point fingers when they have not sat on the hot seat.”
