Atiku Targets APC Leaders’ Identity

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has issued a sharp retort to the Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), advising the party to cease worrying about his political moves and instead focus on the identity and age of its own leaders. The response comes after the Lagos APC mocked his recent decision to officially join the African Democratic Congress (ADC).

In a statement released by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Atiku accused the Lagos APC of displaying hypocrisy, selective amnesia, and intellectual laziness in its attempt to mock his political decision. He insisted that his political relevance is beyond question.

Atiku emphasized the transparency of his own public life. He noted: “For the avoidance of doubt, Atiku Abubakar’s political journey is public, transparent, and fully documented. His age is known, his parents are known, his educational records are intact.”

He then drew a direct comparison to the leadership of the ruling party. He asserted that his public records can be traced “without the need for forensic experts, private investigators, or sworn affidavits to reconcile conflicting identities.”

The former Vice President suggested this places him far ahead of the APC’s paymaster who, he claimed, “is well past 90, yet insists on clinging to power and is already scheming for a second term.”

Atiku challenged the logic of the APC’s criticism regarding his age. He asked what to call a “visibly frail leader whose true age remains one of the country’s best-kept mysteries,” if he himself, at 79, is deemed “too old” to aspire to office.

He argued that the APC lacks the moral standing to enable a man who has allegedly “switched names, ages, origins, and educational histories,” while simultaneously attacking him for making strategic political moves within a democracy. He concluded: “Party mobility is not a crime; identity fraud is.”

Atiku insisted that his decision to collaborate with the ADC is driven by conviction, nation-building, and a shared democratic vision, not desperation. He suggested that only those who treat political parties as personal estates would find his collaboration confusing.

The former Vice President challenged the Lagos APC to stop pretending to be concerned about Nigeria’s future. He argued that the party’s real fear is simple and understandable: his continued political viability.

The statement concluded by asserting that Atiku Abubakar remains the single most formidable, experienced, and prepared leader in the country today. His moral stamina and national acceptance, the statement claimed, continue to expose the “emptiness of the APC’s propaganda and the illegitimacy of the regime they serve.”

He suggested that if the APC is looking for a man defined by “restlessness, panic, and desperation,” they need only look to the Villa. The occupant, he claimed, is “struggling to govern, struggling to appear coherent, and struggling to convince Nigerians that he is the age he claims to be.”

Finally, he urged the Lagos APC to abandon “unintelligent statements” and instead direct its energy toward explaining the nation’s collapsing economy, the pervasive insecurity, the hardship imposed on citizens, and the human suffering that he described as the “lasting legacy of their party.”