Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar says the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation should not expect Nigerians to accept a blanket invocation of “danger to lives” as justification for keeping potentially disclosable records concerning President Bola Tinubu away from public scrutiny.
Atiku, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, said the irony would be laughable if the reality in Nigeria were not so tragic.
The statement read, “The FBI says disclosure could endanger lives. Which lives? Nigerians are already dying.
“In the past three and a half years since Tinubu became Nigeria’s President, he has pursued economic policies that have made his government a threat to the daily survival of ordinary Nigerians.
“Many have been killed by terrorists and bandits. Many more have died amid hunger, inability to pay medical bills and the crushing emotional and economic pressure of being unable to provide food, shelter and basic necessities for their families.
“Families that once managed three meals now struggle for one. Parents cannot afford medicines for sick children. Breadwinners are buckling under debt and unbearable economic pressure. This is the human cost of Tinubu’s senseless removal of fuel subsidy without a credible plan to protect ordinary Nigerians.
“Danger to life is therefore not a legal abstraction to Nigerians. It is a daily reality in our homes, hospitals, farms, highways and communities.
“And this is precisely why the return of fuel subsidy under my watch is not negotiable.
“I will not apologise for choosing the survival of Nigerians over economic dogma. The subsidy I propose will be targeted, transparently financed, capped and independently audited, with safeguards against corruption, diversion and criminal arbitrage.
“Fuel affects transportation. Transportation affects food prices. Energy affects production. Production affects jobs. All of them determine whether an ordinary Nigerian family can survive until the end of the month.
“So when Tinubu boasts that subsidy is gone, Nigerians should ask him what exactly he is celebrating: the empty cooking pots, abandoned medical prescriptions, unaffordable transport fares or businesses struggling to survive?
“Atiku’s Nigeria will not measure economic success by how much suffering citizens can endure.”
Addressing the FBI, the ADC presidential candidate said nobody was demanding the exposure of undercover agents, confidential sources or sensitive investigative techniques.
He added, “Protect your agents. Protect your sources. Protect legitimate investigative methods. Redact whatever American law genuinely requires you to redact.
“But do not stretch those protections until they become a bulletproof vest for Tinubu.
“Our demand of American law enforcement is not a call to interfere in Nigeria’s politics. It is a humanitarian and democratic appeal rooted in the principle that people have a right to information legitimately available about those who exercise enormous power over their lives.
“Nigerians have a democratic right to know the history and character of the man who occupies their country’s highest office. Where information relevant to that legitimate public interest rests with American law enforcement and can lawfully be disclosed, the principles of openness and democratic accountability demand that it should not be unnecessarily hidden.
“If information can lawfully be released without endangering investigators, confidential sources or legitimate law-enforcement operations, release it.
“Nigerians are not asking America to conduct our democracy for us. We are saying that American secrecy laws must not inadvertently become a sanctuary from accountability in Nigeria.
“So, to the FBI, our message is simple: Protect your investigators. Protect your sources. Protect your methods. But do not protect the truth from Nigerians. Our people are already paying for bad governance with their lives.”
