Atiku Hits Tinubu: You’re Using Institutions To Gag Opposition

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has again taken a swipe at President Bola Tinubu’s administration, accusing it of turning state institutions into weapons against the opposition.

Atiku was reacting yesterday to the unsealing of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan’s office at the National Assembly, which had been locked up for over six months despite a court order declaring her suspension illegal.

The Kogi Central lawmaker was suspended on March 6 for alleged breaches of Senate rules. Although a Federal High Court on July 4 ruled that the suspension was “excessive and unconstitutional,” the National Assembly on September 9 still barred her from resuming. It took the intervention of Senate officials led by Alabi Adedeji, the deputy director and sergeant-at-arms, to restore her access on Tuesday.

Atiku, in a post on X, said the development exposed a “deliberate strategy” by the Tinubu government to muzzle dissent and prepare the ground for electoral manipulation in 2027.

“The suspension of Governor Siminalayi Fubara and lawmakers in Rivers, the unlawful suspension of Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, and the weaponisation of institutions to hound opposition voices are not isolated acts.

They are clear markers of the Tinubu administration’s grand design to subvert democracy and impose itself at any cost,” Atiku declared.

The 2023 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, who has remained Tinubu’s fiercest critic, warned that opposition forces would resist any attempt to drag Nigeria into authoritarianism.

According to him, “We will do everything legitimate and within the bounds of the law to protect democracy, defend the people’s mandate, and rescue the nation from the suffocating grip of authoritarian rule.”