The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, has assured Nigerians that on no account will he mortgage the mandate of Nigerians as freely expressed in the February 23, 2019 Presidential election.
He gave the assurance against the backdrop of the alleged invasion and arrest of Alhaji Babalele Abdullahi, son in-law and finance director of his group of companies in Abuja on Saturday.
In a statement issued by the Media Adviser to the PDP candidate, Paul Ibe, Atiku said Babalele’s ordeal was part of moves to cajole him into congratulating President Muhammadu Buhari who was declared re-elected by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The PDP Presidential candidate added that operatives of the anti-graft agency were not given access to the house until his son in-law’s lawyers arrived.
The EFCC agents, numbering over twenty, came in two regular vehicles, an 18-seater Toyota bus (marked Abuja CS 522 RSH) and a hilux van.
He said the operatives came with a search warrant to search the house and office of Babalele and found nothing incriminating, before proceeding to his office at Oakland Centre in Maitama where they also found nothing incriminating.
The EDCC officials, however, took away some documents of landed property after which they stormed his Wuse residence where they again found nothing incriminating after a search.
According to Atiku, Babalele was afterwards taken away to the EFCC office in Wuse to make a statement alongside Mr. Lawan Ayuba.
While saying that he recognized the constitutional role of the EFCC and indeed any other agency of the government to carry out investigations, the former Vice President of Nigeria maintained that he would not be cowed by any attempt to blackmail him into mortgaging his mandate.
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