Former vice-president of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar has finally speak on the bitter truth that led to quarrel between him and his former boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo.
One of the national leader of All Progressive Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar insisted that Obasanjo wanted to be lifetime presidency through his ” third term ” agenda bid in his second tenure.
In recent interview with Zero Tolerance, a magazine published by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Atiku said, it was initially assumed that the plan was to modify the constitution so that Obasanjo could serve a third, four-year term as President.
He, however, said the aspect of tenure limitation was carefully removed so that Obasanjo could be President for life.
When asked why he and Obasanjo didn’t see eye to eye towards the end of their tenure as vice president and president of the country respectively, he said, “My offence was that I disagreed with him on the amendment of the constitution to remove tenure/term limits or what was popularly called the ‘third term agenda’.”
“In fact, he sent the then Attorney-General and Prof. Jerry Gana to my office to bring the draft amendments to the constitution. After going through (them), I found out that tenure limits had been removed. In other words, he could be President for life.
“I then asked them that ‘if I send you to the President, can you deliver this message?’ They said yes. I said ‘go and tell him I will not support it and (I) will fight it’.”
Atiku said due to his disagreement with Obasanjo, the ex-president decided to tag him as a corrupt person. Adding that the then Chairman of the EFCC, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, accused him of corruption but later apologized.
He said, “When he came to ask me for forgiveness, I said if you want me to forgive you, Nuhu, go to the same television stations where you said I was corrupt and say you now (have) realized that I am not corrupt.
“Then he said ‘sir, you have forgiven so many people who have offended you publicly without them going to TV stations to apologize to you’ and I said, ‘your case is different because first of all, I helped to found the EFCC. I was instrumental to your appointment, so, I believe I have contributed to your development and this is how you are paying me back. In any case, he kept on apologizing and I said, ‘okay, no problem. That closed the chapter’.”
Atiku also denied media reports that a United States Senate report accused him of laundering $40m in the US between 2000 and 2008. The former vice-president confirmed that he did transfer money to the US but it was not illegal.
He added, “It was an allegation which was not proved. It was my legitimate money which I transferred to the US; there was nothing (wrong) about it. More so, I was not indicted in that report. They only said suspicious funds but I proved before the Senate committee that they were not suspicious.”