China comparison exposes Tinubu’s past – Atiku

Former Nigerian Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has sharply criticized the Presidency's defense of President Bola Tinubu, asserting that invoking China's legal system has inadvertently intensified scrutiny on allegations surrounding Tinubu's past.

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Nigerians have not forgotten the legacy of the privatisation programme under Atiku’s watch as Vice-President. He presided over an egregious privatisation heist, selling national assets to cronies for peanuts and causing thousands of job losses and unpaid salaries and pensions that President Tinubu is clearing today.

Atiku, who was the presidential candidate for the African Democratic Congress in the 2027 election, described the Presidency's reference to China as a "monumental own goal." He argued that China's stringent laws on serious drug offenses and its robust anti-corruption regime turn the administration's defense into a disadvantage.

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A man with such a dismal record as a public servant certainly has no business asking for our votes. Indeed, if Atiku Abubakar were a Chinese, he would be rotting away in jail for his crimes against the Nigerian people.

The exchange began when presidential spokesman Bayo Onanuga accused Atiku of corruption during his tenure as Vice-President, stating that Atiku would have been jailed in China. Onanuga cited the privatization program under Atiku's watch as a "heist" that led to job losses and unpaid benefits, which he claimed President Tinubu is now addressing.

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It takes a peculiar kind of unintelligence for a spokesman to set out to drag an opponent before a hypothetical Chinese court, only to end up dragging his own principal into the dock.

Responding through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku's camp countered that the Presidency's spokesman made a strategic error. Shaibu highlighted that China's maximum penalty for serious drug trafficking offenses is death, thus inviting a comparison that could question Tinubu's past. Atiku maintained he has never been indicted or convicted of any crime in Nigeria or abroad.

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Perhaps, the spokesman did not realise that the maximum penalty under Chinese law for the most serious drug trafficking offences is death. Having chosen China as his benchmark, he unwittingly invited Nigerians to examine the very standard he thought would embarrass Atiku Abubakar.