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As controversy over alleged impeachment threat against Vice-President Atiku Abubakar over his alleged improper investments in communications giant, Globacom, rages, the No. 2 citizen has thrown a bombshell, revealing that President Olusegun Obasanjo has been no saint in the running of the nation's affairs.
As controversy over alleged impeachment threat against Vice-President Atiku Abubakar over his alleged improper investments in communications giant, Globacom, rages, the No. 2 citizen has thrown a bombshell, revealing that President Olusegun Obasanjo has been no saint in the running of the nation's affairs.
Speaking exclusively to your favourite Saturday Sun before Wednesday's final bust up between the two prominent citizens, Atiku sensationally revealed that if there is one person who has enriched himself in the past seven years, that person is certainly Obasanjo.
His words: "When he [the president] keeps saying over and over again that I am corrupt, I keep looking at him. Because what I know is that he is richer than I am. He has made more money since he came into office than I have made."
The Vice-President is facing charges of alleged illegal investments in Globacom, according to the EFCC investigations. At the tension-soaked Federal Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, he was allegedly walked out by the president, after his issue had been tabled for deliberation.
Atiku has consistently denied his culpability in the deal. By Thursday morning, the Atiku issue and the alleged impeachment threat had enveloped the confines of the National Assembly, splitting the two Houses into pro- and anti-impeachment legislators.
However, Atiku insists, in the interview below, that he's been merely a victim of bad blood politics spearheaded by his estranged boss. He also spoke on the allegations of corruption frequently woven around him, amongst sundry issues...
How come anytime your name crops up, it is often associated with corruption. There is also the allegation that as Chairman of National Council of Privatisation, you virtually sold the country to yourself?
That was a propaganda emanating from some mischievous quarters. They wanted to use it to seriously damage my image. It did not start with the president, but later on the president's people also took it from there, and it became widespread everywhere. Then I said okay, if there is anybody who has any evidence that I sold any enterprise to myself, let him come out and prove it. As far as I'm concerned, I have not sold any enterprise to myself. Then El- Rufai came out some few years back and spoke very, very bluntly and told the public that there was never a time I either interfered or directed him to do anything contrary to due process.
But it seems to have stuck. That is the general view. Remember the president's son granted an interview that you were going to buy up the whole country.
It is a mere, mischievous propaganda.
Does it worry you?
It does not worry me because I am innocent. The truth will always prevail.
So it is not true that the VP enriched himself during the privatisation?
You see, government machinery is in his own hands now (Obasanjo). He should be able to investigate and find out whether I enriched myself through privatisation. Long, long time ago, if the man has anything against me, he would have finished me long time ago.
Where did things go wrong? I mean here you were, he used to say this is my hand bag as it were and all of a sudden, you are both where you are in your relationship?
I have not even spoken yet, I told you.
Yes I mean at least you spoke out during the third term debacle?
Well, I felt it was time I began to take positions on very very vital issues in the country because we are almost less than one year to an election and I intend to run. People must definitely want to know where I stand on certain issues.
Have you told him you want to run?
Yes, I have told him I want to run.
He accepts it?
Whether he accepts it or not it does not make any difference.
In the past, they sacked your aides, and as we hear, they have done everything to cripple you, you maintain a silence that almost got some people angry. Why did you adopt that approach? Was it your own strategy or that is how you are?
I know I have tremendous amount of patience. But I also realised that we are running a country and we needed to unify the country. If I began to pick on the president for a fight, the tendency is that we are going to divide the country into two. It will be the south, north, it will be the muslims and christains. And I did not want to do that.
But that is where we are almost headed now?
Well, not necessarily where we are now. The issue that divided the president and I was neither north nor south, neither Christian nor Muslim. It is third term, it is the issue of democracy.
You granted an Interview to ThisDay and you said the president swore to you he was quitting in 2007. That interview seemed to have sparked off the immediate trouble.
In fact, it was the president who tempted me with the presidency.
How?
Sometimes I think in year 2000, I walked out to him and said ' look Mr. president, you see after our two terms, me, you we should all go. I am not interested in becoming president so that fresh hands can come on board. He just looked at me and banged the table at my face and said 'look, I am not going to repeat the mistake I made in 1979. In 1979, I started so many things I handed over to somebody I did not know, Alhaji Shehu Shagari. He came and twenty years after I came back, I found the country where I left it. I believe by the time we spend 8 years together, you would have learnt so much and we would have achieved so much.
But I believe by the time you will spend another 8 years, to continue from where I stopped, we would have reached a level where nobody can reverse this country backward again. So you must stay after 8 years and continue where I stopped, so that by the time you finish your own tenure, it would have been 16 years and we would have taken this country too far, to a level where nobody would come and reverse it. I said okay sir.
He was the one who started that. So after we quarelled in 2003 and we came back, and there was peace meeting between me and him, and the chief of staff. I now asked the resident that are you not the same person who said so so to me? He said yes, I said have you changed your mind on that? He said no. Then I said what is all this fight about? There was no answer. So, from there I knew that the president wanted to continue himself.
And then you granted an interview where you said he assured you and that made him really angry?
Yes, because that was the basis for my saying in that interview that the president assured me that he was going after 8 years.
You believed him then?
I have learnt not to believe the president any longer, I am sorry about that. That is why I said there are certain things I will not want to publish now.
You have consistently been demonised as corrupt, while the president is a prudent person. He is allegedly the one that is strict and saving money and you allegedly corrupt. How did that sink in?
When he[the president] keeps saying over and over again that I am corrupt, I keep looking at him. Because what I know is that he is richer than I am. He has made more money since he came into office than I have made. I have no other ways of making any money other than my very, very legitimate business transactions. And I don't have a budget. I don't approve contracts. I don't have a vote, so where am I going to steal the money?
Does it make you angry?
It does not make me angry.
Does it worry you?
It does not. What for? Because I am not living on this government. I am not. They give me three basic things. They give me housing, food and transport. All the rest are minor expenses which I can afford.