The Co-chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday disputed the democratic credential of former Vice President Atiku Abubkar.

He berated the Waziri Adamawa for what he described as a shallow commitment to democracy, the rule of law and the anti-corruption fight, stressing that his antecedents and current position on the state of the nation lend credence to hypocritical devotion to the cause of liberty and freedom.

Iinubu said the former number two citizen, who worked in tandem with his boss, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to rig elections in five Southwest states, cannot be described as a democrat.

He recalled that, recently, the former vice-president was apologising to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for failing to also rig the 2003 governorship election.

The former Lagos governor chided Atiku for his subjective criticisms of the Buhari administration’s battle against graft, lamenting that he deliberately decided to support those who refused to thread the path of honour and decency.

Tinubu, who reacted to Atiku’s State of the Nation Address, particularly his position on the Justice Walter Onnoghen saga, wondered why the PDP candidate had uncritically confused the suspension of the Chief Justice with removal, thereby confusing members of the public.

He said the PDP flag bearer indulged in disregard for truth, patent misrepresentation, mistatement and self-incrimination, which, instead of exalting him, have made him unfit for the highest office in the land.

Rejecting Atiku’s claim to a life-long defence of democracy, Tinubu said: “his previous life of over seventy years was one of skirting democracy and of blatant impunity in attempting to enshrine reactionary government and installing an unjust political economy.”

Tinubu chided Atiku, who he described to as “my dear and good friend” for a shortfall in historical perception, saying the difficulty he alluded to in his speech about the moment was less significant than the difficulty with his personal memory.

The former governor recalled that Atiku teamed up with Obasanjo to illegally withhold Lagos State’s local government allocations, in utter disregard for court orders.

Tinubu stressed: “When you lorded over Nigeria in tandem with President Obasanjo, there were myriad court orders mandating that your government render to Lagos State the funds due it to improve the lives of its millions of inhabitants.

“Instead, you gladly and without dispute joined Obasanjo in utter disregard for these unambiguous legal verdicts. In so doing, you demeaned the rule of law. You also readily sacrificed the economic development and welfare of millions of innocent people in Lagos just to gain some illicit political advantage that proved to be fleeting and of no avail to you in the end.”