The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has called on the Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Police and other security agencies to invite the Director of Special Projects and New Media of the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Femi Fani-Kayode to explain his allegations and insinuations of an attempted coup being planned by Atiku and top generals.
Atiku, in a statement issued on Sunday by his Special Assistant, Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, said while reacting to a tweet by Fani-Kayode that Atiku met with top army generals with a possible plan to scuttle the election or perpetrating a coup, an offence which attracts death penalty.
He said allegations of a coup should not be taken lightly, given the fact that it is treason, an offence that carries the death penalty, describing Fani-Kayode’s attempt to recant as belated, as the allegations are too grave to be ignored.
Atiku noted that when the late Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Obadiah Mailafia, made allegations that a serving governor was a Boko Haram commander, he was invited five times by the DSS and the police until he had to run to court.
He said Fani-Kayode must not be given preferential treatment because he works for the ruling party. According to him, “The late Mailafia was invited more than five times by the DSS and the police for saying a serving governor was a Boko Haram commander. Fani-Kayode has also made an allegation that borders on security, and must therefore be invited to expiate as failure to do so will be partisanship”.
The former Vice-President noted that Fani-Kayode was known by all Nigerians to be a cantankerous and unscrupulous individual, who has been unable to shake off allegations of substance abuse levelled against him by the All Progressives Congress, (APC), in a statement signed by Lai Mohammed on March 2, 2015.
Atiku said it was ironic that Fani-Kayode had been missing his corruption trial before the Federal High Court in Lagos, claiming that he is ill and yet continues to play an active role in Tinubu’s campaign.
The former Vice-President asked Nigerians to remember that Fani-Kayode remains the biggest traducer of the APC until last year, adding, “Nigerians must not forget that it was Fani-Kayode that gave the APC the nickname Almajiri Peoples Congress”.
He called on Nigerians not to forget that it was Fani-Kayode that had been demonising Northerners, encouraging separatists and inciting Southwest agitators for the last seven years.
