By: Our Correspondent
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has denied reports alleging that he has formed a new political platform on which he intends to run for the presidency in 2019, with the Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, as his running mate.
Atiku via a statement, signed by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, described the report as a political hatchet job planted by his opponents who were desperately trying to invent events in order to draw a wedge between him and President Muhammadu Buhari on the one hand and the leadership of the APC on the other hand.
He noted that: “The report was an incompetent product of fiction, so shallow and vacuous that even its authors could not validate its credibility with reliable and verifiable sources.
“Some people of bad faith trying tooth and nail to spread the seeds of discord in the party, and destroy the much needed unity, harmony and cohesion, which are the pillars of strength for every political organisation.”
The statement said despite all the smear campaigns and reputation lynching and sponsored falsehoods, Atiku’s loyalty to President Buhari and the APC leadership would not be disturbed.
“Atiku Abubakar would ordinarily have ignored the malicious report, but says he chose to react, lest his silence would be mistaken as an admission of the falsehoods published against him”, Ibe said.