Janet Samuel, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Media Campaign Organisation has called for the interrogation and prosecution of the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar for alleged money laundering and corruption.
The organisation made the call during a press conference on Monday in Abuja, where he was accused of the allegations of fleecing the country’s fund using “Special Purpose Vehicles” (SPVs) between 1999 and 2007.
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The campaign council who based its request on an audio recording released by the former aide to Atiku Abubakar, Michael Achimugu, last week said in the audio, the former vice-president is alleged to have explained how shell organisations were set up to divert public funds.
Addressing Newsmen, the leaders of media directorates of the organisation, Dele Alake, Festus Keyamo, Bayo Onanuga, Femi Fani-Kayode, and Idris Mohammed, also urged Atiku to step down from the general election scheduled for next month and apologize to Nigerians for allegedly using private accounts to siphon monies from the public treasury.
According to them, the campaign organisation will pursue legal means to seek the former vice president’s disqualification from the elections due to alleged corruption
The Chief Spokesperson and Director of Public Affairs, Festus Keyamo (SAN) noted that the grave revelations by a whistle-blower, Mr Micheal Achimugu of how the former Vice President through SPVs defrauded and fleeced the nation’s funds to run the activities of the opposition party while he was in the office between 1999 and 2007.
Keyamo alleged that Atiku colluded with his then boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo, “to fleece the country and steal public funds using what he termed “Special Purpose Vehicles” (SPVs).”
According to Keyamo, “Those SPVs were companies Atiku admittedly registered upon assumption of office as Vice-President (with the approval of President Olusegun Obasanjo) using “trusted allies” as shareholders and Directors. The purpose was to divert government contracts to these companies as “consultants” and then paid monies into these companies and used those monies to fund the PDP and their private businesses and family activities.
He further alleged that “We can all vividly recall that during that tenure, both President Olusegun Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar built the Bells University and American University respectively. Now, we know from where the funds came.
Calling for Atiku’s prosecution, the council argued that, “From the oral account of the whistle-blower, the voice notes and all other supporting documents, Atiku has committed some infractions of the law
Keyamo insisted that “since the nation now knows that the Marine Float Account and other similar accounts were ‘SPV’ accounts, it follows that all payments made into that account were monies stolen from the public coffers. Therefore, we call on all security agencies to recover all monies withdrawn from that account by anyone for that matter.
