By Danladi Ahmed
The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) has described the latest attack by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar on President Bola Tinubu over the OVH deal with Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) as yet another example of the idiom ‘misery loves company’ saying that it was all an attempt to be heard.
That Atiku Abubakar is unhappy and he is looking to share his troubles with others is the reason of making spurious allegations against the president, hoping for consolation that his false allegations would make others sad, lonely and dejected as he is, the TMSG has affirmed.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Emeka Nwankpa and Secretary Dapo Okubanjo, TMSG said Atiku’s claim that the President’s family has hijacked the operations of NNPCL is not only false but also a projection of something he could easily have done if he had been elected President.
The statement reads in part, “We are taken aback by the attempt by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to link President Bola Tinubu to a deal consummated by NNPCL in October 2022 with OVH, which he claimed belonged to the President’s family.
“This is yet another rumour from the stable of an ‘elder statesman’ who is yet to come to terms with his devastating electoral loss in the hands of a man he was known to have previously described in glowing terms.
“It should be expected that the former Vice President would have post-election trauma over his perennial electoral losses, but we do not expect it to last this long. And certainly not to the extent of him gripping over tales from the rumour mills, all in a bid to continually cast President Tinubu in bad light, this time alleging that his family owns NNPCL
“We know how much he coveted the state-owned company to the extent of declaring at a business summit before the 2019 election, that he would sell it to his friends adding incredibly “are my friends not entitled to be enriched?”
“And like we said a few weeks ago in response to a similar diatribe from the Atiku camp, this is another example of the idiom ‘misery loves company’. A man who has had several allegations of financial malfeasance trailing his time in government would always think that everyone is like him.
“It did not come to us as a shock that Oando which Atiku and his media handlers claim has a stake in NNPCL via OVH, has come out to accuse the former Vice President of indulging in falsehood just as the state-owned oil company has also dismissed the latest Atiku lie.
“This clearly has been the regular past time of a well-oiled team steeped in beer parlour tale and propaganda, but short on meticulous research and rational thinking.
“If they had done their home work well, they would have known that Oando had, between 2016 and 2019, divested its stake in the down stream sector of the petroleum industry to enable it concentrate on midstream and upstream activities of the industry.
“In fact, a simple Google search would have saved Atiku and his team from another embarrassing situation of being called out as purveyors of fake news.
“So we make bold to say that the Wale Tinubu-owned Oando PLC is not the same entity as OVH which Atiku and his people claim belongs to the Tinubu family.We are sure that we will again be proved right about our description of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain as someone who authorizes statements without a thought for accuracy.
“And while the former Vice President is yet to get over his post-election blues, we, like many Nigerians, are still expecting him to sue his former principal, President Olusegun Obasanjo who in Chapter 36 of his book ‘My watch’, linked him to the embezzlement of $145m belonging to the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF).
“Besides, the country is still reeling from the effects of Atiku Abubakar’s shoddy handling of a privatisation process which killed several thriving Government Owned Enterprises (GOEs) and erasing thousands of jobs at Aluminium Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON), Electricity Meter Company of Nigeria (ELMCON), Ajaokuta Steel Company, Delta Steel Company and Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria (PAN) to mention a few.
“He has failed in so many areas and we find it utterly insulting that the same man who was also used in 2010 as a case study on foreign corruption by the US Senate is posturing as the conscience of the nation more than 20 years after leaving office.”
TMSG urged Nigerians to see the former Vice President’s latest allegation as yet another chapter from his book of politics with bitterness.
