President Bola Tinubu has been charged by a coalition of Civil Society Organisations and Political Parties for Good Governance with depriving Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar of his national award, the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON).
The coalition stated on Thursday that there is nothing noble about Atiku, who attempts to discredit the presidency for partisan motives.
The coalition’s demand came as Atiku accused President Tinubu of submitting to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a fraudulent diploma from Chicago State University (CSU).
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During a news conference in Abuja, the coalition’s leader, Ene Lilian Ogbole, also warned Nigerians to ignore the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi for dragging the image of Nigeria in the mud.
She stated that depriving Atiku of his national honour would serve as a deterrence to others, allowing Nigerians to begin to value the position of the President again.
Ogbole 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 overhyped, 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.
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“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.
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“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.”
Speaking on Obi, the coalition stated, “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.”
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