Former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar
| credits: File copy
| credits: File copy
Atiku relives 2007 poll experience
Former
Vice President Atiku Abubakar has accused the Peoples Democratic Party
and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of contributing to his
failed bid to win the 2007 presidential election.
Among the other institutions the
presidential aspirant named in a statement, titled ‘I will never stop
fighting for democracy’, on Monday were the Petroleum Technology
Development Fund, National Council for Privatisation and those he
referred to as “aggrieved power-mongers.”
Atiku, who contested and lost the
presidential election on the platform of the Action Congress in 2007,
lost the PDP primaries in 2011 to President Goodluck Jonathan.
Atiku said he knew that he would lose the 2007 presidential election but refused to yield to pressure mounted him to back out.
He said, “Two nights before the 2007
presidential election, and we were about to lose. It was my first run in
a general election for the presidency and I knew it would be a heavy
loss. Two weeks before that evening, two state governors had visited my
home to beg me to step down. There had been rumours the results of the
yet-to-be-held elections had already been tabulated and sent to the
INEC.
“At the time, I believed the people of
Nigeria would see this as a battle to save the soul of the country and
would judge me fairly. What I did not see coming was one of the best
executed smear campaigns aimed at tarnishing everything I had
legitimately worked to achieve in our struggle for democracy.”
He expressed disappointment that he was
betrayed by the PDP and the commission, which he said he contributed to
their establishment.
He claimed that after losing the
election, which he referred to as a battle, he still felt he had won “a
war to preserve the sanctity of our democratic process.”
The former vice president added, “We are
all products of our history. Mine was formed in the spring of 1995,
when our dictator, General Sani Abacha, sentenced my mentor, Shehu Musa
Yar’Adua, to death and former boss Olusegun Obasanjo to life in prison
in sham trials. He went so far as to send a hit squad to open fire on my
family (members) and I at our home in Kaduna. That was the very night I
vowed that when we defeated this military junta, I would never allow
another despot to sit and rule over the people of Nigeria.”
http://www.punchng.com/news/atiku-relives-2007-poll-experience/
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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