By Emmanuel Nduka
Kassim Afegbua, former campaign spokesperson of ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has said his former boss is not fit to run for the country’s highest office, following a United States Congress report on corruption indicting him.
Afegbua who was also a former spokesperson for a former Nigerian dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, in a press release issued on Sunday, called on the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to open an inquiry into the US Congress report against Abubakar.
He suggested that the 2023 presidential hopeful alongside his wife, should be serving jail terms, just like their American alleged accomplice, Senator Jefferson.
Afegbua also urged the US to press extradition charges against Abubakar, so he could defend himself in a law court.
“Rather than seek election under the umbrella of the PDP in 2023, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar will do well to visit the United States of America to resolve his lingering corruption allegations which have led Senator Jefferson to jail.
“The outcome of an investigation against him and his ‘former’ wife Jennifer revealed a lot of underhand transactions bordering on money laundering and other financial malfeasance.
“The onerous thing to do was for him to visit the United States of America to answer to those weighty allegations which were the outcome of the comprehensive investigations carried out by the United States Congress.
“In the 2019 presidential campaigns, we were inundated with several news reports, demanding that our party candidate should visit America. When the request became so compelling, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was reportedly granted a waiver by the United States Consular Office in Lagos to enable him to visit the United States with the then Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki.
“After that visit till date, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has not been able to visit America again ostensibly on the stretch of those weighty allegations which have not been dispensed with. The entire report of the US Congress copiously indicted Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on issues concerning money laundering.
“It will make judicious sense if the United States Government is able to treat this pending matter once and for all, by way of extraditing the former Vice President to answer those lingering queries on financial impropriety.
“As an alumnus of the Les Aspin School of Government and Good Governance, Washington DC, who was exposed to the rudiments of anti-corruption studies in 2004 and sponsored by the United States Government, I feel patriotically disturbed that those who should be cooling off in jail, are still walking the streets as free men and even trying to run for the highest office in the land,” Afegbua stated.
