Why Atiku Abubakar has a case to answer, by Jesutega Onokasa
Senator Ehigie Uzamere recently penned what can only be described as the most utterly watery and, at the same time, disgracefully untenable article, in a futile attempt to defend his lord and master, Atiku Abubarkar, presidential candidate of the PDP, from the devastating allegations of Michael Achimugu, Atiku’s former aide and close confidant.
Senator Uzamere, in a truly astonishing piece he titled “Achimugu’s Alleged Voice Note On Atiku: Why The Blackmail?”, even had the most hypocritical effrontery to ask whether Achimugu was “really Atiku’s staff” and that if ever he was, he “should have shown us his letter of appointment, told us his office and designation, and not just a picture of him standing beside Atiku”!
These people are simply unbelievable!
Uzamere is presently an aide to Atiku Abubarkar and all he needed to do to verify whether or not Achimugu is a former colleague is to have asked Atiku, himself, unless Uzamere was inadvertently letting the cat out of the bag that even as a former Senator, Atiku so underrates him that he does not have access to his own boss as Kassim Afegbua has elsewhere indicated regarding Atiku’s attitude to his team!
And, come to think of it, what was all that balderdash about Achimugu’s appointment letter?
Achimugu has multiple appointment letters tying him to Atiku, copies of which Senator Uzamere’s own grandchildren could easily fetch him off the internet if he truly wanted to ascertain the status of his former colleague!
And, then again, what was that miserably lame line about Achimugu’s office and designation?
How does a whole senator reduce himself to this?
He was your former colleague, Distinguished, sir!
Perhaps in a bid to belittle Achimugu, Uzamere said “there’s no denying the fact that many young people look forward to meeting with successful men and women”.
It sounded much like his colleague, Barrister Daniel Bwala saying that he feared that thanks to Achimugu, the elites and elders might henceforth be reluctant to take young people under their wings and trust them enough to teach them how to form special purpose vehicles, SPVs, to defraud and destroy their country!
What a crew of spewers of the utterly absurd has Atiku managed to aggregate around himself!
According to Uzamere, if there’s anyone that would want Achimugu “eliminated, it is his current paymaster who will be worried about being blackmailed by Michael Achimugu tomorrow”.
I’m sorry but this is just too shamefully low, my Distinguished, sir.
You provided no evidence that Achimugu has any current supposed “paymaster” and, frankly, this can be construed as merely a ploy to throw suspicion elsewhere should anything untoward be done to him from Atiku’s end!
Trust me, should anything happen to Michael Achimugu, there will be hell to pay!
Senator Uzamere also called Achimugu “a serial blackmailer”.
Perhaps the senator’s challenge is English Language because Achimugu is not known to have ever spilled the beans on anyone other than Atiku.
Indeed, contrary to what Uzamere seeks to have Nigerians think of this patriotic and courageous young man, Michael Achimugu is only a whistleblower and most certainly not any kind of blackmailer.
Not done with his bewilderingly disjunctive tirade, Uzamere decided to also wax eloquent on what according to him is “how campaign funds are raised in the US and other developed countries” and sought to “compare that with what Atiku said on tape”.
In the first place, Senator Uzamere, here unwittingly admits that it is actually Atiku’s voice on Achimugu’s tape even though he had earlier referred to the tape as an “alleged” one in the title of his altogether ridiculous article!
I can imagine how difficult it is to sell an unsellable candidate but it is not by force to write, my dear Distinguished.
In any case, you are certainly not the only one who has travelled to America and similar places.
Political parties in those jurisdictions do not raise money vide special purpose vehicles or through similar patently criminal devices so please stop that utter crap, sir.
In fact, wherever and whenever they do, agencies such as the FBI and Scotland Yard promptly railroad any party officials involved to court, and, thereafter, straight into jail, unlike what is presently happening in our country where your pathetic excuse for a presidential candidate is still walking free and deluding himself he will be president of a country many of whose citizens believe he does not even come from, in the first place!
It pains me to have to put it this bluntly but Senator Uzamere’s descent into image laundering for his money launderer of a presidential candidate is clearly a case of “how art the mighty fallen!”
Indeed, it is truly disgraceful that a whole senator would seek to justify a brazen, clearcut and unambiguous crime in this motor park manner.
Unfortunately, all Senator Uzamere succeeded in doing with his ill-advised writeup is to arguably identify himself to Nigerians as someone that was never qualified, in the first place, to be a senator!
I cannot believe that Ehigie Uzamere, of all people, is a hungry man but that is how many people will make sense of his present antics.
Whatever be the case, Mr. Achimugu has levelled very weighty allegations that he has additionally backed with solid facts, compelling figures and a myriad of other evidence that cannot be wished away.
Indeed, as a whistleblower, Michael Achimugu would be any prosecutor’s delight anywhere in the world!
Atiku Abubarkar has a case to answer and he must be made to answer that case.
That he is running for office does not confer upon him immunity from prosecution.
That one is the presidential candidate of a political party does not invest such person with the status of an outlaw beyond the reach of the long arm of the law.
No one is above the law and Atiku Abubarkar must face trial for his crimes against this country.
Needless to say, he must also be disqualified from running to be president of a country he apparently does not even come from, in the first place.
Onokpasa, a lawyer and member, All Progressives Congress, APC, Presidential Campaign Council, writes from Warri.
