By Omeiza Ajayi

Presidential candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Atiku Abubakar, has turned the Presidency’s attempt to draw a comparison with China back on itself, arguing that the strategy has instead placed President Bola Tinubu under sharper scrutiny.

Reacting through his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku argued that a presidential spokesman who reaches for China as a benchmark for judging him ends up setting a standard his own principal cannot survive.

“It takes a peculiar kind of unintelligence for a spokesman to set out to drag an opponent before a hypothetical Chinese court, only to end up dragging his own principal into the dock,” he said.

He pointed out that capital punishment remains the maximum penalty under Chinese law for the most serious drug trafficking offences, and maintained that no court anywhere, including in Nigeria, has ever indicted or convicted him for corruption, narcotics offences, or any crime. He described this record as a matter of settled public fact.

Rather than treat the comparison as a threat, Atiku invited the Presidency to apply it to the case of the $460,000 forfeited to the United States Government in a civil forfeiture matter tied to allegations of narcotics trafficking and money laundering.

He argued that Chinese authorities, given their reputation for strict enforcement on drug-related matters, would treat such a forfeiture not as closure but as the opening of an investigation.

Extending the logic further, Atiku suggested that Chinese standards of accountability would equally implicate the administration on unrelated fronts — from a national budget he described as riddled with padding and questionable appropriations, to unresolved allegations against a senior presidential aide over the alleged creation of a fake government agency, to what he called the gap between the government’s “Renewed Hope” promise and the hardship many Nigerians report facing.

He said the episode reflected poorly on the Presidency’s handling of its own messaging, adding that a media adviser’s role is to shield his principal from political missteps rather than create them. He was similarly dismissive of the Presidency’s earlier reliance on a US government reply to diplomatic correspondence, insisting it amounted to routine exchange between sovereign states rather than any judicial finding or vindication.

Atiku argued that accountability, once invoked by reference to another country’s laws, cannot be applied selectively.

The Imo State Chairman of the Action Peoples Party, APP, Ernest Njesi, has declared the party’s readiness to participate in the forthcoming general elections, maintaining that the party has fielded candidates for all elective positions.

Njesi made the assertion during a media chat with journalists in Owerri, where he disclosed that the APP is not only prepared but also fully optimistic that its 2027 outing will be a successful one.

The Imo APP chairman stated that the party has already registered all its candidates with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and is battle-ready to win many elective seats.

“We have presented before INEC three senatorial candidates, 10 House of Representatives candidates, and 27 candidates for the State House of Assembly, and they have all been approved to participate in the 2027 electoral contest,” he said.

Njesi added that the party will continue visiting communities across the state to encourage the electorate to support the party and educate them about its programmes.

He further said that the party leadership in the state is using the medium to condemn the alleged attack on its secretariat and the destruction of its billboards, an act he claimed was orchestrated by political opponents in the state.

Njesi, however, maintained that no political intimidation can stop the party from participating in the forthcoming general elections.

He advised other political parties to channel their energy into selling their manifestoes to the electorate rather than engaging in political violence.