Mr Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, has advised former vice president Atiku Abubakar to end his “unprofitable” presidential ambition.
In a statement titled: “Time for Atiku Abubakar to finally go away and end his ambition to be President”, Onanuga observed that Atiku had been in that pursuit for three decades.
The statement was made available to newsmen on Monday in Abuja.
“We want to advise Atiku that after over three decades of elusive bid for the Presidency of Nigeria, he must now end his unprofitable bid.
“He should go away from any venture that will further pollute the political atmosphere and national harmony.
“Our institutions must also ensure that corrupt, desperate, self-serving serial losers do not have a space in our democracy.
“Reason is, if they don’t win the battle, they might burn the nation,” Onanuga said.
He said the PDP presidential candidate tried very hard to perfect his act of misinformation by seeking to lay claim to faux morality and higher ideals.
“But, in actual fact, his entire life is antithetical to any higher ideals. For instance, Atiku claimed he worked along with others to end military rule in Nigeria.
“The truth is, he was known to be in bed with the same junta who held democracy hostage and incarcerated his mentor, retired Maj.-Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (rtd), till death.
“He distanced himself from Yar’Adua while in detention to keep alive his governorship ambition on the platform of one of those inglorious Abacha political parties.
“We were wrong to expect that Atiku, at 77, would play the statesman and sportsman and accept, with equanimity, the verdict of the highest court and the people of Nigeria.
“Instead, he constituted himself into a demagogue and anarchist in the way and manner he sought to pull down and delegitimise institutions of State in a futile bid to achieve what he could not get via the ballot box.”
He said that Atiku’s brand of politics was such that once an electoral process or election does not go his way or pave the way for his victory, democracy becomes dysfunctional.
“For him, democracy should either go his way or the highway.
“The PDP candidate was uncharitable and pugnacious in his choice of words and his view about Nigeria.
“We can only imagine the level of frustration that could make a former Vice President of Nigeria to hold such pessimistic view of a country where he once occupied the second highest position.”
Onanuga said Nigeria was moving forward and set to achieve its manifest destiny as one of the most respected and successful nations of the world under the leadership of President Bola Tinubu.
“Contrary to Atiku’s gloomy submission on our democracy, we are excited to tell the world that our democracy is thriving and blossoming.
“It is the reason, for the first time, since 1999, the character of our National Assembly and its outlook reflect the diversity and plurality of the choices and preferences of voters,” Onanuga stated.