TheCable

Phrank Shaibu, special assistant on public communications to Atiku Abubakar, has asked the All Progressives Congress (APC) to blame President Muhammadu Buhari over the lingering cash scarcity in the country, and not the opposition party.

Shaibu was reacting to a statement by the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential campaign council saying the stance of Atiku, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on the deadline for the old naira note validity makes him Nigeria’s “public enemy number one”.

Bayo Onanuga, the council’s media director, said Atiku and the PDP do not mean well for Nigeria.

On Thursday, the former vice-president had asked the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) not to extend the February 10 deadline for the exchange of old naira notes with new ones.

Abubakar said “election riggers” are seeking to push the CBN to extend till after the elections so they could achieve their “evil plots”.

Shaibu described Onanuga’s statement as a “bedtime story”.

“Onanuga, who has made himself the official interpreter of Tinubu, has the rare skill of clarifying the gibberish that his boss usually utters. This shows he has a creative imagination,” Shaibu said.

“His wild imagination has been brought to bear in his latest statement where he claimed Atiku was behind the scarcity. This is nothing but a bedtime story for kids.

“What Onanuga is too timid to say is that President Muhammadu Buhari is the minister of petroleum and was also the one who approved the naira redesign policy of the CBN.

“Rather than blame President Buhari, he tells a fable about how Atiku is more powerful than the president. How a once revered journalist fell to this level is another Nigerian tragedy.”