Alleged Rigging: Stop grandstanding, bring your evidence, Atiku dares ex-SGF Lawal

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By Omeiza Ajayi

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ABUJA: Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has dismissed allegations by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation SGF, Mr. Babachir Lawal, over the conduct of the African Democratic Congress ADC presidential primary, describing them as a cocktail of bitterness, conjecture, and political revisionism dressed up as public interest.

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Atiku’s Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, in a statement on Tuesday, said Nigerians who watched Mr. Lawal’s recent television interview were confronted with a curious spectacle: “a man armed with outrage but bereft of evidence; rich in allegations but poor in facts.”

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Shaibu declared the response as Atiku’s final word on the matter.

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“Mr. Lawal spent nearly an hour making grave accusations about the conduct of the ADC presidential primary. Yet he failed to produce a single piece of verifiable evidence. No document. No petition. No result sheet. No witness statement. No recording. Nothing. For a man who repeatedly insisted that proof was ‘everywhere,’ his performance was a masterclass in making extraordinary allegations without meeting the elementary obligation of substantiating them,” Shaibu quoted Atiku as saying.

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“He arrived with accusations. He left with accusations. In between, the evidence never arrived”, he added.

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Atiku noted that rather than the intervention of a genuine whistleblower, what Lawal’s interview revealed was “a disappointed political actor struggling to come to terms with the failure of his preferred candidate.”

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By Lawal’s own admission, the former SGF had openly aligned with another aspirant before the conclusion of the primary process, campaigned for that candidate, and publicly believed that candidate should win.

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The statement also cited what it described as a glaring internal contradiction in Lawal’s argument — that Atiku was simultaneously portrayed as politically irrelevant and politically all-powerful.

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“According to his own account, Atiku was inactive, unpopular, and absent from the field. Yet Nigerians are simultaneously expected to believe that this same supposedly dormant politician somehow orchestrated a nationwide conspiracy across 8,809 wards.

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“Such arguments are not merely implausible; they are insulting to the intelligence of party members whose democratic choices he now seeks to invalidate simply because they did not favour his preferred candidate”, he said.

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The statement accused Lawal of operating as “a political mercenary,” retailing narratives designed to undermine Atiku’s standing before Christian communities in the Middle Belt and other constituencies where the former Vice President retains considerable goodwill.

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Atiku also pushed back on Lawal’s claim that he had “absolutely nothing,” saying the remark could only have come from a man blinded by animosity. The statement pointed to Atiku’s role in liberalising Nigeria’s telecommunications sector, his contributions to economic reforms, private sector development, education, and national growth as evidence of a record that speaks for itself.

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“As far as we are concerned, this is the final response to Mr. Lawal’s increasingly desperate attempts to remain politically relevant through sensationalism and character assassination. Nigerians have heard him. Nigerians have seen him. And Nigerians have judged for themselves.

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“The facts remain unchanged. The truth remains intact. And no amount of bitterness can alter either”, said Shaibu.

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