The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has demanded that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, must be arrested and prosecuted over the money laundering allegations made by his former media aide.
The organisation made the call during a press conference in Abuja on Monday, maintaining that Atiku does not enjoy any immunity.
Addressing newsmen, the heads of media directorates of the organisation Dele Alake, Festus Keyamo, Bayo Onanuga, Femi Fani-Kayode, and Idris Mohammed, also urged Atiku to resign his candidature and apologise 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 next month for alleged corruption.
The APC PCC enjoined security agencies to recover all monies allegedly stolen from the marine float account by the duo and several other collaborators exposed in the voice note by the whistle blower.
Atiku’s ex-media aide, Michael Achimugu some days ago released an audio conversation with the former Vice President where he (Atiku) admitted that he created organisations including Marine Float, through which he embezzled Nigeria’s money during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
“The issue of the Marine Float Account is not new to Nigerians. In the voice note, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar can be heard boasting that the issue of that account was thoroughly investigated by EFCC, yet then he was smart enough to escape,” the council alleged.
“However, we note that in 2006, at the height of his public quarrel with Obasanjo over the sharing of money, the same PDP officially asked Atiku Abubakar to refund N500million taken from that account.
“In the circumstance, 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 Therefore, we call on all security agencies to recover all monies withdrawn from that account by anyone for that matter.
“In the light of these very grave revelations, we call on Atiku Abubakar to immediately tender an unreserved apology to the Nigerian people and step down from the Presidential race forthwith, whilst handing himself over to the law enforcement agencies.
“What is now clear to the Nigerian people is that between 1999 and 2007: President Obasanjo and Atiku ran a criminal enterprise and an empire of fraud in Abuja at the same time Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was toiling very hard, dutifully and meticulously laying the foundation to rebuild Lagos State.
“That following these revelations, it becomes clear that Atiku Abubakar has absolutely nothing to campaign on again as the period of 1999 – 2007 that he always relies on can now be described by Nigerians as the “SPV years” when they ran Nigeria aground,” it added.