THE Atiku Campaign Organisation alerted the nation, yesterday, of a plot to hang on Vice President Atiku Abubakar and his aides phantom coup allegation as part of the moves “to get rid of the Vice President at all costs.”
The organisation in a statement yesterday said: “The alarm (raised on Thursday by the presidency) is meant to serve as a pretext for the plot to round up Atiku’s aides and associates and charge them with plot to violently overthrow the government.
“The Atiku Campaign believes that it is ridiculous and laughable that those who control all the coercive apparatus of the state are accusing harmless individuals of threatening their lives. It could have only come from a mindset that is an incubator of phantom coup allegations.
“We, however, note the semblance of this allegation to the instructive historical recollection of President Obasanjo 24 hours earlier about the way the Supreme Military Council (SMC) dealt with the coup allegation against the late Gen. Iliya Bisala. This is, however, a sad development that inferences will be drawn from military coups in our march towards democracy.
“We call on Nigerians to be alert to this plot. The nation has passed this route before; we are back at the same tragic path again.
“Vice President Abubakar wishes to affirm to Nigerians that as someone who resisted all invitations to serve military regimes and who has been active in democratic struggles, he never and will never contemplate unconstitutional means of settling political differences. The current crisis will be resolved through the appropriate democratic institutions.
“His commitment to constitutionalism and rule of law is evident in his now familiar resort to Nigerian courts to resolve political disputes. He does not believe in violence or unconstitutional means to settle scores.
“The Vice President has asked all democrats to be vigilant and oppose any attempt to link him to a phantom coup plot as a cover for his elimination from the Nigerian political space. The phantom coup allegation appears to be the last option in (the) desperation to stop the Vice President from contesting the 2007 election.
“The Vice President remains convinced that only God and the Nigerian people will decide the next Nigerian president and not one egomaniac or a cabal.”