Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has dismissed reports that him and members of his family are currently being watched by authorities in the United States.
Earlier last week, the news of the former Presidential candidate and his wives being placed under international banking surveillance for suspicious financial dealings went viral.
However, in a statement titled “Atiku, Family Not Under Surveillance, Have Not Breached Any Laws…These Are Recycled False Allegations,” signed by Atiku’s media aide, Paul Ibe, the media office dismissed the reports as “recycled and regurgitated lies about the person of Atiku Abubakar.”
The statement read thus;
“For the avoidance of doubt, Atiku Abubakar is not under any US watch list, neither has he been charged, nor will ever be charged by the United States Justice Department or any other in a foreign jurisdiction.
“It will be recalled that these recycled lies were re-unearthed just before the February 23, 2019, Presidential election, and to put paid to them, His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, applied for and received a US visa, whereupon he embarked on a visit to the United States on January 17, 2019. He stayed at a hotel just miles to the United States Department of Justice.
“Atiku Abubakar in the course of that trip was also received in audience, by officials of the United States Government. “These ‘new’ reports are a desperate gambit to recast these discredited accusations. They are meant to divert the attention of Nigerians from the recent statement by the Secretary of State of the United States, Mr. Mike Pompeo, announcing visa and travel bans for certain unnamed but notorious individuals“. He said.
