By Obinna Uballa
Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has fired back at Senator Adams Oshiomhole, accusing the former All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman of using “empty noise and cheap propaganda” to deflect attention from the ruling party’s “ruinous legacy.”
Oshiomhole had mocked Atiku as a serial defector after the former vice president formally registered with the African Democratic Congress (ADC), ending his long association with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
But in a strongly worded statement issued on Tuesday, Atiku, through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said Oshiomhole lacked the moral standing to question Atiku’s political choices or leadership credentials.
“Oshiomhole should check the mirror before speaking,” Shaibu declared, accusing the APC senator of seeking to distract Nigerians from what he described as “the monumental failures of the APC – the same party he helped impose on the country and which has reduced Nigeria to its worst condition in decades.”
He dismissed Oshiomhole’s remarks as “a tired and uninspiring distraction,” insisting that Atiku never ran the PDP as a personal fiefdom and operated within a democratic structure – unlike the APC, which he said became a “private estate controlled from Bourdillon.”
“If Oshiomhole is searching for the man who turned a political party into a personal empire, he need not look far – he should look at the godfather he serves,” Shaibu said. “Under the APC, party supremacy died, dissent was criminalised, and state institutions were weaponised. That is the only kind of ‘fixing’ Oshiomhole understands.”
Shaibu also defended Atiku’s public service record, recalling his tenure as chair of the National Economic Council, where he said Atiku helped restore investor confidence, strengthened the private sector, and led reforms that repositioned the economy.
“He has never been President, yet his development blueprint remains the most coherent Nigeria has seen in decades,” he added.
Turning his fire back on Oshiomhole, Shaibu said: “If the APC could not fix Nigeria after eight squandered years and nearly three more under Tinubu, what moral authority does Oshiomhole have to speak about leadership?”
He contrasted Atiku’s “vision, experience and capacity” with what he described as the APC’s “propaganda, noise, and bruising legacy of failure.”
“Oshiomhole symbolises a party that betrayed the hopes of millions,” Shaibu concluded. “He should sit this one out.”
