The Atiku Abubakar Campaign has dubbed the Peter Obi aspiration for presidency as a third term plot for President Olusegun Obasanjo following the commitment of Oby Ezekewesili and many former aides of the former president to the project.
Speaking in an interview on Wednesday, Atiku Campaign spokesman, Daniel Bwala also dismissed the claim by Mrs Ezekwesili that Atiku was never the chairman of the Economic Management Team in the Obasanjo administration.
Ezekwesili who was a member of the team had in a twitter post challenged Atiku to stop claiming the chairmanship of the team as she inferred that the team was led by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Responding to the post by Ezekwesili during an interview on Arise News Television on Wednesday morning, campaign spokesman, Bwala accused the former education minister of being a closet operative of the Obi Campaign which he said was working towards a third term for President Obasanjo.
“First of all, Ezekwesili, I respect her as an intellectual. Everybody knows she is supporting Peter Obi. You see, Peter Obi is supported by most of the people that worked in Obasanjo’s government because Peter Obi’s project is actually a third term agenda of Obasanjo.”
“If you see the people endorsing him including lawyers, elder-statesmen and such it is not surprising that she could say that.”
Insisting that Atiku headed the economic team, Bwala continued:
“The chairman of the Economic Council is the Vice-President and the head and members of the Economic Team come with proposals to discuss policy issues. Not a single one of them can bypass the vice-president and meet the president on the subject of the economy except if the president independently summons them.
“The procedure is that when you have deliberated, the vice president who is the chair takes the findings.
“These things that she is doing let her come out and say I am supporting Peter Obi and campaign for him. This is what we have been complaining, people who parade and masquerade as neutrals when we know that they identify with certain people. So, I challenge any policy expert in Nigeria to help us distinguish, differentiate or counter the fact that the head of the Economic Team whether it is Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the chairman of the National Economic Council, which one among them has the first option of access to the president on matters of the economy.
“So, what she is saying has no basis in facts, no place in logic no place in reality. Atiku Abubakar was the chairman of the Economic Council and most of those in the Economic Council were even found by Atiku. Let her just come out and say I am supporting Obi.
Asking her to make her full disclosure for Obi, Bwala said:
“All these people that worked for Obasanjo but are masquerading as neutrals but are carrying out the agenda of a Third Term…it cannot stand,” the Atiku spokesman said in asserting to the Peter Obi project as third term for Obasanjo.
