A coalition of Civil Society Organizations and Political Parties for Good Governance has asked President Bola Tinubu to strip former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, of his national honour, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger GCON, saying their is nothing grand about a man who seeks to rubbish the office of the president for partisan reasons.
The coalition argued that there is nothing honourable about Atiku for making such baseless allegations regarding the authenticity or otherwise of a Chicago State University CSU certificate presented by President Tinubu for the elections.
Addressing a press conference Tuesday in Abuja, Convener of the CSOs, Dr Ene Lilian Ogbole, also urged Nigerians to ignore the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party LP, Peter Obi, “for dragging the image of Nigeria in the mud.”
She said stripping Atiku of hai national honour, usually reserved for vice presidents, would serve as a deterrent to others so that Nigerians can begin to henceforth attach some regard to the office of the President.
Dr Ogbole also lambasted Obi for questioning the identity of President Tinubu, describing it as childish, shameful and laughable.
She said; “It keeps getting clearer that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar is on a collision course with national interests and has never subscribed to true democracy nor respected the rule of law.
“These assertions were made even clearer when he revealed to the world during his over hyped, baseless and error ridden world press conference, how he singlehandedly relinquished Lagos state to Asiwaju while they fraudulently took over other Southwestern states by hook and crook during the 2003 general election.
“This, no doubt, is a mockery of our collective sensibilities as a people committed to the ideals of constitutional democracy.
“It truly beats our imagination how a man with a long history of electoral manipulation, habitual disrespect for constituted authorities and serial election manipulator who would stop at nothing, whether moral or immoral, and shamelessly come to the public domain to accuse a true and decent democrat of attributes that are alien to him.
“It is common knowledge that most of the dirty characteristics that Atiku has falsely accused President Tinubu of are synonymous with his own name and character as confirmed by his former boss, Olusegun Obasanjo who lacked words of expression to qualify Atiku’s lack of patriotism and decency.
“As stakeholders in the business of nation building, we wish to use this medium to call on President Tinubu to utilize the authority conferred on him by the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria, as amended, to protect the image and interests of the country by stripping ‘Atiku Abubakar Sadiq’ of the national honours of GCON.
“You would agree with us that a man with Atiku’s character does not deserve to keep the award that is meant for honourable men and women,” the coalition pleaded.
She added that; “stripping Atiku would also serve as a deterrent to others so that Nigerians can begin to henceforth attach some regards to the office of the president.”
On Obi, the coalition noted that; “if Atiku’s press conference is aptly described as a face-saving gimmick to capture power from the backdoor by whipping up casual sentiments via fabricating and speculating lies that have been globally verified and completely buried forever, then Mr Obi’s belated press conference over the same issue, is at best, childish, shameful and laughable.
“It is rather inexplicable and hard to comprehend what manner of desperation we are dealing with, particularly Peter Obi’s desperate attempts to create all manner of doubts around the documents and personal information that Mr President submitted to INEC without a single proof of evidence to substantiate his claims.
“Rather than providing evidence to contradict President Tinubu’s submissions to INEC, Obi laughably requested the President to help him with evidence that would invalidate the certificates and information submitted to INEC,” Ogbole noted.