Leaked Tapes: Return To PDP, Atiku Tells Amaechi

The presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, has described the statement made by the Minister of Transportation and Director-General of President Muhammadu Buhari Campaign Organization, Rotimi Amaechi on the state of the nation as courageous.

Atiku, in a statement yesterday by his Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, urged Amaechi to resign his appointment and return to the PDP.

Atiku decried what he called the shabby treatment of Amaechi for speaking truth to power in a leaked audio tape which led to his “being made a ceremonial Director General of the president’s re-election campaign organization.

“We dare say that the cold war between the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Mr. Rotimi Amaechi as well as the statements credited to the latter in a leaked tape which led to the appointment of Tinubu to take charge of the campaigns are at the least a national embarrassment to the nation. Amaechi must now resign and return home to the PDP where he belongs.””

In the audio clips allegedly made out of an informal interaction Amaechi had with journalists covering his ministry, the minister was quoted to have said: “Apart from Abuja, check anywhere else that has infrastructure…Lagos is a glorified village…the only difference between Lagos and other cities is that fact that our business is in Lagos and when our people are doing business they can always have food. If not, what do you have in Lagos?… “

Atiku said the sentiments expressed by Amaechi in the leaked audios were in tandem with those of the PDP and the Nigerian public to the effect that Nigerians were hungry and need a to be rescued from “a clueless All Progressives Congress administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.

‘‘I have said it several times that the APC and the government it controls at the centre are clueless, confused and totally incapable of piloting the affairs of this nation. Is there any better evidence of this cluelessness than what Nigerians are witnessing now?

‘‘It does not matter how much the President tries to engage in damage control over what has led him to make Rotimi Amaechi take the back seat even as the Director General of his re-election campaign or the evil silence by the President and the APC over Amaechi’s shocking comments that reflect the thinking in the highest echelon of the Buhari administration, that the president’s incompetence was behind the slow pace of progress the nation was making.”