Obasanjo lobbying US to withdraw Atiku’s US entry ban – APC

* Let them present credible evidence – Obasanjo’s aide

The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) says it has come across credible reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has made moves to secure United States entry visa for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alh. Atiku Abubakar, whose candidacy he endorsed on Thursday.

The APC, in a statement issued on Friday through its acting National Publicity Secretary, Mr Yekini Nabena, said it learnt that the former President was lobbying US authorities to withdraw the ban reportedly placed on Atiku from entering the United States following a 2005 $500,000 bribery scandal that involved Atiku, his fourth wife, Jennifer and former United States Congressman, William Jefferson.

But in a swift reaction when contacted on phone today, an aide to former President Obasanjo challenged them to provide credible documents to back the allegation.

“Let them come up with credible source now. You don’t have to ask us that question if you have gone back to them and say ‘give us a credible source’.  And that is all.

“I’m not aware of anything like that. But you should have gone back to the APC and say that ‘let me as journalist have access to that information too. Let me see the document myself so that I know what I want to share with the public is true’. Anyway, I’m not aware of anything like that,” Kehinde Akinyemi, the media aide to the former president said.

The statement, however, recalled that the former president while in office had deployed resources of the country on a global dragnet coordinated by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in getting Atiku prosecuted for alleged corrupt enrichment and money laundering.

The APC said former President Obasanjo’s intervention in Atiku’s ban from the United States of America was evidence of his “legendary hypocrisy and self-serving interest in national affairs.”