Senate President Bukola Saraki says the Presidential candidate
of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, did not travel to
the United States as an aide to the Senate President.
The All Progressives Congress had said Atiku was finally allowed
to travel to the US because he posed as an aide to Saraki.
Speaking on AIT’s Kakaaki programme on Wednesday, Saraki, who is
the Director-General, Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation,
described the allegation as nonsensical.
He said, “These are desperate claims. When you are campaigning
and you see that you have suffered a setback, just move on and
don’t make a fool of yourself. To say the candidate travelled on my
merit is not true.
“He applied for his visa, was given the visa and he was invited
to attend functions. How do you do that? How do you travel as an
aide? That is ridiculous! They know it. It is very difficult for
them to respond because they have sold a lot of propaganda and lies
to Nigerians.
“I remember when we sat a lot of young people down when we
started and introduced him (Atiku) as our candidate and they said
they would support him because he has a good agenda for the youth
and knows how to create jobs but the concern was that the
government said Atiku could not travel to America and how can we
have a President that cannot travel to America?
“And he (Atiku) always said it was not a problem but it was
important for us to address the problem and put it behind us and
because the other party was using it as propaganda, we decided to
go to America and instead of them to keep quiet and move on, they
say he went as my aide.”
Saraki also lambasted the Buhari-led government for operating an
opaque fuel subsidy regime.
The Senate President, who exposed subsidy fraud at the National
Assembly in 2011, said the corruption was still taking place.
He admitted that corruption thrived under former President
Goodluck Jonathan’s subsidy regime but argued that Buhari’s own was
worse because his government was give money to marketers with funds
that were not approved by the National Assembly.