‘Persecution led to creation of Atiku media office’

The political travails of former Vice President Atiku Abubakar cannot be isolated from the circumstances that led to the creation of his media office, Mazi Paul Ibe, Media Adviser to the Turakin Adamawa and Head, Atiku Media Office (AMO), has said.
Ibe, who said this at an occasion to mark the 10th year anniversary of the AMO in Abuja, stated that the former vice president became a target of political persecution and media smear propaganda since he declared his opposition to the 2006 third term agenda, which attempted to remove constitutional term limits.
Ibe said he was cast as “corrupt and unreliable” because he joined other Nigerians to oppose the third term ambition, recalling that he was “indicted and found guilty as charged and sacked as vice president by an administrative panel, which was packed with Atiku’s opponents and loyalists of his persecutor.”
He said the law courts later declared the actions illegal.
“Under these difficult circumstances, Atiku needed to tell his own story by countering the false narratives put out by his political opponents that cast him in the image of the most corrupt politician. No smart politician can afford to under-estimate the influence of the media.
“Faced by this reality, Atiku had no choice but to establish his own media outfit to respond to the stories told against him by his political opponents,” said Ibe.