By Bassey Asuquo
The Democratic Front (TDF) has described calls by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for the resignation of President Bola Tinubu over the issues surrounding the fake Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council (PFIPC) as mischievous, unwarranted and uncalled for.
In a statement signed by its Chairman, Mallam Danjuma Muhammad, and Secretary, Chief Wale Adedayo, the group argued that the reasons by the former Vice President were hollow and absurd.
“We believe that the former Vice President was being mischievous when he described submissions of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation and the Central Bank of Nigeria at the ongoing probe of circumstances surrounding PFIPC as contradictory.
“In his usual obtuse and misguided approach to public issues, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar failed to enlighten himself on the PFIPC controversy in the most appropriate manner before going to the public space.
“It is unambiguously clear that the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation spoke for itself as a single entity of government, when it stated that the process of opening an account for the fake PFIPC with the Central Bank was not completed, and that no amount of money was made available to the fictitious agency through the CBN.
“Therefore, if the Central Bank informed the House Committee that an account was opened for the fake agency on the authority of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), an agency different from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, it does not amount to a contradiction as mischievously insinuated by the former Vice President.
“In our view, a contradiction can only be established in this particular situation if the Central Bank affirmed that the PFIPC account was opened on the authority of the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation. But this was not the case. We then wonder why former Vice President Atiku Abubakar would insist on displaying crass ignorance in the public space, on matters that demand thorough consideration.
“It should be noted that the criminal and undesirable elements behind the fraudulent PFIPC left no one in doubt as to their capacity for crime, when they forged a letter of appointment from the Office of the Chief of Staff to the President, as against the due process of official correspondence through the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF).
“It is therefore not surprising to us that the fraudsters were able to create an account in the Central Bank through another entity, when their initial attempt to have it done through the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation failed.
“Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is clearly suffering from the pressure of his failed age- long political ambition. His resort to media manipulations as a means of gaining political relevance has become his political albatross. Nigerians should therefore ignore him,” it added.