The Presidency has accused former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar of distorting facts to discredit President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
Tinubu’s media aide, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement, highlighted foreign investment opportunities being attracted by the government and defended the President’s son, Seyi Tinubu’s business interests.
Onanuga criticized Atiku’s opposition to key projects, saying Nigeria is aiming for a $1 trillion economy under Tinubu’s leadership.
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“The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, is fast developing a reputation for distorting and manipulating facts for his self-serving objective of discrediting the current administration,” Onanuga wrote on X.
“In his latest press statement, the defeated PDP presidential candidate made wild claims on a number of issues that need to be corrected so that the public will not be misled into accepting fallacies as the truth.”
Onanuga said that contrary to Atiku’s claim, the Tinubu administration, within its first year, has attracted over $20 billion into the economy.
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He said while Tinubu was in New Delhi, India for G20 Summit last year August, Indian business leaders committed over $14 billion in new investments.
According to the Presidential aide, a substantial part of this sum is already in the country.
Onanuga said that in an unmistakable vote of confidence in the economic reforms being executed by the Tinubu administration, foreign investment in Nigeria’s stock market has increased, from N18.12 billion in Q1 2023 to N93.37 billion in Q1 2024, an increase of 415%.
He said the last time Nigeria saw such level of investment was in the first quarter of 2019, when N97.6 billion was invested.
Onanuga stated that the market, since Tinubu came to power, has broken records and created more wealth for the investors.
Onanuga said that the Presidency found it strange that Atiku could accuse Tinubu of conflict of interest in the award of Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway to Hitech Construction Company which he claimed is owned by the Chagoury family because the President’s son, Seyi, sits on the board of CDK, a tiles manufacturing company, based in Sagamu, Ogun State.
He added that Nigerians should, by now, be well accustomed to Atiku’s hypocrisy on many national issues.
“Is it not amusing that the former Vice President, a man who openly said he formed Intels Nigeria with an Italian businessman when he was serving in the Nigeria Customs Service, a clear breach of extant public service regulations, is now the one accusing someone else of conflict of interest?,” he asked.
Onanuga said when Atiku was the Vice President between 1999-2007, he maintained his business links with Intels that won major port concession deals.
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“Was this not an abuse of office, a flagrant violation of his oath, that a company where he was a co-owner won major government contracts and concessions when he was vice president?,” he asked.
He said that Atiku as Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, approved sales of over 145 State-owned enterprises to his known friends and associates.
