Purported Article On Nnamdi Kanu By Atiku Is Fake, Says Atiku Media Office

The media office of  former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, as disowned a purported article on the leader of the Indigenous People Of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu,said to be written by Atiku.

A statement issued on Wednesday by the Atiku Media Office, signed by Media Adviser to Atiku,Paul Ibe, described the article as the handiwork of mischief makers and their sponsors bent on tarnishing the reputation of the Waziri Adamawa.

According to the statement, “It has come to the notice of the Atiku Media Office that there is an opinion article titled ‘IPOB: Loathe or love Kanu, he has fought better – Atiku’ purportedly written and signed by His Excellency Atiku Abubakar, Vice President of Nigeria, 1999-2007 and chieftain of All Progressives Congress in circulation,” the statement read.

“What started as the handiwork of mischief makers and their sponsors bent on tarnishing the reputation of the Waziri Adamawa was first noticed on chat rooms.

“But having found its way on the website of a reputable newspaper which obviously fell victim to the evil work of the scammers, the media office of the former Vice President is compelled to respond and to state as follows:

“That the article in circulation is unknown to Atiku Abubakar or Atiku Media Office.

“That His Excellency Atiku Abubakar never signed any opinion article with that title in circulation.

“That this is the handiwork of evil people and their cowardly sponsors aimed at soiling the reputation of Atiku Abubakar and his political standing.

“That this signposts a wicked and deliberate plot to unleash media attack on Atiku Abubakar with a view to portraying him in bad light.

“That this is classical Fake News.

“The Atiku Media Office urges Nigerians and the reading public to discountenance the article and to be vigilant as more of such diabolical stuff are underway.

See the fake article below:

IPOB: Loathe or love Kanu, he has fought better – Atiku

For 35 years, Anthony Enahoro, Afenifere, Ben Nwabueze, OPC, Ọhaneze, MEND, MASSOB, Awolowo, and other reputable Nigerians tried and begged for restructuring, the north rebuffed them.

Nobody even took them serious. Nobody listened. Then a little known rabble-rouser ran a pirate radio station from his matchbox room in Peckham. In three years he made the hitherto unfashionable and impossible thing central to our national politics.

El-Rufai was in London yesterday talking restructuring. They fought in Ondo in a meeting on restructuring, there is a Yoruba declaration. Northern elders are shifting ground while pretending to grandstand.

You don’t have to agree with his style, I also don’t, but you must be one pretentious clown if you don’t acknowledge that Nnamdi Kanu, loathe or love him, has achieved what all those people and organizations have been fighting for over 35 years without success.

He did it in three years. The mass movement he inspired became a huge threat to the establishment. They had to take him out. Sadly, ethnic bias and hate from those who accuse him (rightly too) won’t let folks see or acknowledge what this man has done.

The fire he lit up will definitely lead to something tangible happening this time. People aren’t ready to take no and platitudes for answers again. This much you can concede to Kanu without letting the hate you often accuse of him of get the better of you.

Dead or alive, the little rabble-rouser from Afara-ukwu Umuahia has secured his place in history. In the final analysis, immortality isn’t how long you live. It is how long your name is remembered, and for good or bad, Kanu will be remembered for ages as the man that took aim at the very heart of the Nigerian political establishment and they rolled in the tanks to quell him.

That is something you must concede. When history is made, the protagonists rarely know the consequences of the chain of events they unleashed. But posterity will always remember.

Kanu has been many things to many people- uncouth, brash, hateful, obsessed, a charlatan, a clown, a messiah, a saviour, a fraud, etc. We can’t seem to agree. We must agree though that he has also been an agent of change.