Paul Ibe, spokesperson to former Vice President and presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Atiku Abubakar, has disputed the claim t’at President Bola Tinubu simply “donated” the Action Congress, AC, to Atiku to contest the 2007 presidential election.

Ibe made the clarification in a statement posted on his official X handle on Friday, following an assertion by Arise News anchor Rufai Oseni on The Morning Show that Tinubu helped Atiku secure the AC platform to contest the 2007 presidential election.

He said the account that Tinubu, then Lagos State governor and now President and presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, merely handed over his party to Atiku was misleading, stressing that the AC emerged from a broader political realignment involving several political groups.

“There has been considerable misinformation about how the Action Congress (AC) emerged, particularly the claim that then Lagos State Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu simply ‘donated his party’ to then Vice President Atiku Abubakar to contest the 2007 presidential election.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Ibe said.

According to him, the AC emerged in 2006 from a political realignment involving the Tinubu-led faction of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, the Advanced Congress of Democrats, ACD, the Justice Party and other smaller groups, following the political battle against former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s third-term ambition.

Ibe said prominent figures on the AD side included Tinubu, Chief Bisi Akande, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Otunba Niyi Adebayo and Chief Adebayo Adefarati.

On the ACD/PDP breakaway side, he listed Atiku, Audu Ogbeh, Lawal Kaita, Bashir Dalhatu and Gali Na’Abba, among others.

Ibe cited Akande’s autobiography, where the former AC national chairman wrote: “In 2007, we formed a party, the AC with Abubakar Atiku.”

There has been considerable misinformation about how the Action Congress (AC) emerged, particularly the claim that then Lagos State Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu simply “donated his party” to then Vice President Atiku Abubakar to contest the 2007 presidential election.

He said Akande also disclosed that the understanding was for Atiku to be the presidential candidate, with Tinubu potentially becoming his running mate.

That arrangement, Ibe said, did not materialise because Atiku was not inclined to a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

Atiku, who was vice president under Obasanjo from 1999 to 2007, eventually contested the 2007 presidential election on the AC platform, with Senator Ben Obi as his running mate.

Ibe also cited the account of former AC national chairman, Chief Tom Ikimi, which he said described the AC as a coalition involving the PDP breakaway group and the AD faction, rather than a party owned personally by Tinubu.

He further rejected the suggestion that Atiku never reciprocated Tinubu’s political support, pointing to their longstanding political relationship dating back to the PDM era.

According to Ibe, that relationship had political consequences during the 2003 election when the PDP-led administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo sought to dislodge the AD from the South-West.

He said Lagos survived the political onslaught and noted that Atiku had publicly spoken about choosing to stand by his relationship with Tinubu rather than support the effort to remove him from Lagos.

“So the history is not one of Tinubu simply giving Atiku a political platform and receiving nothing in return.

“Atiku and Tinubu were political partners who exchanged political favours at different points. The AC itself was the product of a broader coalition and realignment—not Tinubu’s personal property donated to Atiku,” Ibe said.

The former vice president and Tinubu are now set for another presidential contest in 2027, with Atiku flying the ADC flag and Tinubu seeking re-election on the APC platform.

Ibe said reducing the history of the AC to a simple benefactor-beneficiary relationship was inaccurate.

“To reduce that complex history to a benefactor-beneficiary relationship is not merely an oversimplification; it is a distortion of the political record,” he said. (Vanguard)

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