Senate President Bukola Saraki on Wednesday denied reports that Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, traveled to the United States as an aide to the Senate President.
Theere has been allegation by the ruling APC that the former vice president was finally allowed to travel to the US because he posed as an aide to Saraki.
But Speaking on AIT’s Kakaaki programme on Wednesday, Saraki, who is the Director-General, Atiku Abubakar Campaign Organisation, described the allegation as nonsensical.
He said, “These are desperate claims. When you are campaigning and you see that you have suffered a setback, just move on and don’t make a fool of yourself. To say the candidate travelled on my merit is not true.
“He applied for his visa, was given the visa and he was invited to attend functions. How do you do that? How do you travel as an aide? That is ridiculous! They know it. It is very difficult for them to respond because they have sold a lot of propaganda and lies to Nigerians.
“I remember when we sat a lot of young people down when we started and introduced him (Atiku) as our candidate and they said they would support him because he has a good agenda for the youth and knows how to create jobs but the concern was that the government said Atiku could not travel to America and how can we have a President that cannot travel to America?
“And he (Atiku) always said it was not a problem but it was important for us to address the problem and put it behind us and because the other party was using it as propaganda, we decided to go to America and instead of them to keep quiet and move on, they say he went as my aide.”
Saraki who admitted that corruption thrived under former President Goodluck Jonathan’s subsidy regime, however, noted that Buhari’s own was worse because his government gives money to marketers with funds that were not approved by the National Assembly.