Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has responded to fresh bribery claims linking him to the Tinubu administration, while also taking a swipe at his former boss, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, saying the elder statesman remains bitter over past legal battles they fought.The remarks came as Atiku, now the presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, continues to position himself as a leading voice in the opposition ahead of 2027.
The Bribery Allegation And Atiku’s Denial
The controversy started after Atiku alleged during a national conference in Abuja that the Tinubu-led government was giving N50 million each to opposition party leaders to weaken their structures ahead of 2027. He said he had met with leaders of a political party who “openly admitted” receiving the money.
The ruling All Progressives Congress quickly blasted the claim. APC National Publicity Director Bala Ibrahim said an elder statesman like Atiku should not make “flippant allegations” without proof, and challenged him to substantiate the N50 million bribe claim.
Opposition parties including the PDP, NNPP, Labour Party and SDP also denied receiving any inducements from the government.
Atiku has not produced documents to back the N50 million claim, but he doubled down on a separate allegation involving the Presidency. He called on President Bola Tinubu to suspend his Chief of Staff, Femi Gbajabiamila, and order an independent probe over accusations by Prince Adeniyi Adeyemi, Director General of the Presidential Foreign Intervention Promotion Council.
Adeyemi alleged that Gbajabiamila solicited a N400 million bribe and asked for 48 percent of a take-off grant. Gbajabiamila denied the claim and said the agency in question did not exist.
Atiku dismissed that defense. “How can you allocate N27.4 billion in the budget to a government agency that doesn’t exist without leaving more questions than answers,” he said. He described the issue as “colossal budgetary fraud” that cannot be swept under the carpet, and urged Tinubu to lead by example on transparency.
Obasanjo, Court Battles And Old Wounds
While addressing supporters in a recent video that went viral on TikTok, Atiku also revisited his frosty relationship with Obasanjo. He said he dragged his former boss to court eleven times while serving as Vice President, and “never once had to meet a judge behind the scenes to get justice”.
The reference was to their well-documented fallout between 2003 and 2007, particularly over Obasanjo’s failed third-term agenda. Atiku has previously said his close relationship with National Assembly members helped stop the constitutional amendment that would have allowed a president to run for a third term.
In the same video, Atiku suggested Obasanjo’s continued criticism of him stems from bitterness over those court defeats. The comment echoes long-standing tensions between the two PDP leaders, with Obasanjo having publicly described Atiku in the past as a “very corrupt man”, a label Atiku’s allies have consistently rejected.
Observers note that Atiku brought up the court record to underline his own democratic credentials. “A man challenging a sitting president repeatedly… and still trusting the system enough to win through due process. That is what real democratic credentials look like,” the viral clip stated.
Politics, Institutions And 2027
Atiku’s latest statements fit into a broader opposition narrative that democratic institutions are under pressure. In a separate statement celebrating a court victory for the ADC leadership, he warned of “coordinated efforts to weaken opposition politics through litigation and the manipulation of institutions”.“From failed attempts to deregister political parties, to the sponsorship of proxy litigations, to the manipulation of institutions, Nigerians have witnessed an orchestrated campaign to weaken opposition politics,” he said, adding that the judiciary “remains the last hope of the common man”.
He also defended the ADC’s current National Working Committee led by former Senate President David Mark, saying it emerged through a lawful process and “no amount of forum shopping or judicial adventurism can alter that fact”.
The exchange with Obasanjo and the bribery back-and-forth with the APC show how early the 2027 conversation is already heating up. For Atiku, the strategy appears to be two-fold: paint the current government as intolerant of opposition, and present himself as a veteran democrat who has stood up to power before.
Whether the N50 million and N400 million allegations will lead to formal investigations remains to be seen. The Presidency has not announced a probe into Gbajabiamila, and the APC has demanded evidence for Atiku’s claims.
For now, Atiku is banking on public memory, of courtroom fights with Obasanjo, of power tussles within PDP, and of his long run at the presidency, to frame himself as the alternative.
As he put it in the viral video: the problem is not a lack of capable leaders, but a system that does not always reward credibility.
