- Says I am not corrupt
Former Vice President Atiku has stated how he stopped former President Obasanjo’s third term, according to Atiku Obasanjo wanted a limitless term, he however opposed him. Speaking further in an interview published in the latest edition of the EFCC’s Zero Tolerance Magazine he also said he is not corrupt as believed in many quarters.
“My offence was simply that I disagreed with him on the amendment of the Constitution to remove tenure or term limits or what was popularly called third term agenda. In fact, Obasanjo sent the then Attorney General of the Federation, and Jerry Gana to my office to bring me the draft of the amendments to the constitution,” he said.
“After going through, I found out that tenure limits had been removed. In other words, he could be president for life. I now asked them, ‘if I send you to the President can you deliver this message’? And they said ‘yes’. I said ‘go and tell him I will not support it and I will fight it.”
On the issue whether he is corrupt or not he said; “well if Atiku is corrupt, he would have been found guilty of corruption by all the panels and probes and cases brought before courts.”
“I remember the only corruption indictment against me was a white paper which was cooked up by our own administration over night to including the very EFCC that I helped found and other cabinet ministers, which I challenged in court.
“The court rightly dismissed all those indictments as being mere political; and till todayn nobody has ever indicted me of corruption.”
On the allegations of corruption leveled against him by the Governor of Kaduna State, el-Rufai, in his book, ‘Accidental Public Servant’, Atiku said el-Rufai did not give any evidence or prove where he was corrupt.
He added that: “this is the same el-Rufai and others who incorporated Transcorp during my time as Vice President and offered me shares and I declined.”
“I wrote to them officially to say it was unethical of me to have accepted those offers; so, where is the corruption toga coming from.” He said.
Asked to explain the bribe scandal of N50 million, involving Senator Ibrahim Mantu, Jonathan Zwingina and others during el-Rufai’s ministerial confirmation screening, Atiku said: “No, that is absolutely not true.”
He said: “It is also on record, because I controlled campaign funds, every Senator benefited from those funds; and el-Rufai now went and said those campaign funds were meant to be bribe.
He also gave reason Ribadu must go on public television station to avow that he was not a corrupt person in order to earn his forgiveness. Atiku’s claims are contained in the current edition of the EFCC Magazine, Zero Tolerance released in Abuja yesterday.
“Of course, my boss, the president, investigated the story and found out that indeed every Senator got contributions from the campaign fund which I was managing. So where is the corruption in that?”
