I received the WhatsApp message below from Waziri Atiku Abubakar (@Atiku) on Sunday afternoon in response to my open letter to him which was published earlier that day titled ‘AND NOW YOU CALL HIM BOLA’ together with another article which I published the Sunday before titled ‘THE 7TH BID OF WAZIRI’.
I have posted a screenshot of his message and of my response below.
For the record he wrote:
“PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE FEMI. YOU SIMPLY DON’T HAVE THE CREDIBILITY TO CRITICISE ME”.
My response to him was as follows:
“CREDIBILITY SIR?
THIS IS PRECISELY THE PROBLEM.
AT 66 I AM NOT A CHILD AND I FEAR ONLY GOD.
IF I AM NOT CREDIBLE ENOUGH TO EXPOSE YOU THEN WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU ARE CREDIBLE ENOUGH TO EXPOSE OR DISRESPECT OBJ, GEJ, BAT OR KS?
I AM VERY PROUD OF MY ACHIEVEMENTS AND RECORDS OVER THE YEARS WHICH APPARENTLY YOU AND YOUR MINIONS KNOW NOTHING ABOUT.
PLEASE KEEP TRYING TO RUBBISH ME AND WHO AND WHAT I AM EVERYWHERE BECAUSE IT ACTS AS A FUEL FOR ME TO TALK AND EXPOSE YOU ALL THE MORE.
I HAVE IMMENSE
RESPECT AND AFFECTION FOR YOU MY WAZIRI BUT SURELY LACK OF CREDIBILITY IS NOT THE RIGHT WORD TO USE AGAINST ME.
IF I DO NOT HAVE THE CREDIBILITY TO CRITICISE YOU OR THE RIGHT TO DO SO, WHO DOES?
YOUR VIEWS ABOUT MY SO-CALLED LACK OF CREDIBILITY ARE SUBJECTIVE JUST AS MY VIEWS ABOUT YOURS ARE TOO.
WHY DON’T YOU LET THE PEOPLE JUDGE?
IN ANY CASE THE MOST INCONSEQUENTIAL AMONGST US SHOULD HAVE HIS SAY WHETHER THEY BELIEVE THEY HAVE CREDIBILITY OR NOT.
WE OUGHT TO LET THE WORLD DETERMINE WHO HAS THE CREDIBILITY BETWEEN US AND SINCE YOU HAVE RAISED THE ISSUE THAT IS PRECISELY WHAT WE SHALL DO.
IF I AM NOT CREDIBLE WITH ALL I HAVE EXPERIENCED, SEEN AND BEEN THROUGH IN POLITICS OVER THE LAST 30 YEARS AND THE EVIL I HAVE SURVIVED OVER THE LAST 20 YEARS THEN WHO IS?
CERTAINLY NOT YOU OR AMAECHI SIR.
I REALLY DO CARE FOR YOU WAZIRI AND I WISH YOU NO ILL AND IF YOU HAD JUST NOT QUESTIONED MY CREDIBILITY I MAY NOT HAVE SAID ANOTHER WORD.
ALAS, THIS WAS NOT TO BE SO AND NOW I APPRECIATE THE FACT THAT EVEN THOUGH I WAS RESTRAINED IN MY INTERVENTIONS ABOUT YOU IT MEANT NOTHING TO YOU. ALL THE BEST MY WAZIRI”.
That is where our conversation ended yet the drama continued elsewhere.
Consider the following.
My dearest Waziri, I am constrained to write to you again.
I was reliably informed that on Sunday afternoon, at the same moment that you sent me your message on WhatsApp, your minion and most junior cheerleader, a sickly creature who looks twice his age, who is withering away from some strange disease, who was once a journalist working at a reputable newspaper house until he left under a cloud of controversy and whose name I always forget, wrote an article in an attempt to respond to my open letter to you, that my supposedly “estranged” ex-wife, who remains very close and dear to me even though we are no longer together, had said a number of ugly things about me in the past, all of which I have denied, even though we are at peace today and have put all that behind us.
The disjointed verbiage your dog wrote which only my personal assistant, Miss Vermoir Galadima, found the time to read and which is below my dignity and status to respond to is, to me, like water off a duck’s back.
Lions do not respond to dogs and this is especially so when that dog only has three legs and no tail.
Simply put I do not pay cognisance to anything your hired help writes: I would rather give my attention to you personally.
If you do not have the strength and courage to respond to me publicly yourself, as you have done privately, then at least send your chief cheerleader Dele and not some unlettered village idiot or arrant fool like the creature you sent.
Meanwhile even your chief cheerleader Dele said similar things about my ex-wife a few months ago during the course of an altercation that I had with him on X about President Tinubu as well and he promptly brought my family into the discourse.
Interestingly yet another one of your cheerleaders and court jesters by the name of Dino who sometimes insists on wearing a skirt over his trousers and who sleeps with cars and motorbikes in his bedroom also resorted to attacking the family of others during the course of political discourse by threatening to physically assault and “impregnate” Senator Remi Tinubu, the First Lady of our nation, when they were both members of the Senate in 2016 and by insulting President Tinubu’s entire family, including his children and all of their mothers, just a few months ago.
My question is as follows: are you the one that encourages these troubled souls that hover around you to resort to this uncouth behaviour or is it that they are just dysfunctional and ill-mannered?
Whatever the case I hold you accountable for not being able to control them.
I am constrained to ask, is that the best your sloppy media team can do?
Talk about what wives and ex-wives say about their husbands and former husbands or rant about the personal lives and families of others?
Should they not stick to soft-cell magazines if that is the sort of rubbish they want to write about?
Yet since they have chosen that path I pity you because what your ex-wife has said about you is infinitely worse and has now become fair game.
Ditto your family matters and the tragic misfortune that constantly stalks your closest aides each time you run for the Presidency.
If you insist that we go down this murky rabbit hole we will and we shall do so together.
Your aides forget that I am not on the ballot but you are.
There was a time when family members and matters were kept out of political discourse and war but not anymore.
Your boys have lowered the bar and your camp will regret it.
I am now constrained to go back into the records and talk about what your estranged ex-wife Jennifer Douglas said about you, what she did to you, what you did to her and more importantly what she did FOR you in the Leno Adesanya Mambilla Power Plant case and OTHER matters.
Whatever she said about me, at least my ex-wife did not throw all my personal belongings, including my underwear, out into the streets from my Dubai home and keep everything that was there, including the furniture, the cars, the washing machine, the kitchen utensils and the house itself for herself.
Neither did she complain about the company I kept with men.
Outside of that we shall also talk about precisely what you did at the airports and seaports in your earlier days as a Customs officer, how you allowed 51 suitcases filled with God knows what to be smuggled through Lagos Airport and what your link with a shady Italian national called Gabriele Volpi and his son Matteo really was.
I will also mention your affiliation with NICOTES (which later became Intels) and how a Customs Officer like you went from a rather conservative salary to being a large shareholder in a multi-billion dollar corporation overnight whilst you were still in Customs.
Again what you did when you were Vice President between 1999 and 2007 which led you to be the subject of an extensive investigation by the FBI and which caused President Obasanjo to express his deep regrets about picking you as his running mate and calling you “very corrupt” becomes relevant.
So does your link with Congressman William J. Jefferson, an American legislator who was sentenced to 13 years in 2009 after the FBI found 90,000 USD cash in his freezer which was part of a 500,000 USD bribe which had been asked for and he was planning to give to a very highly placed Nigerian Government official.
It has been alleged that the Government official in question was you but, in fairness, this is yet to be proved, you were not indicted or convicted for it and I cannot therefore confirm it as a fact and neither do I claim to do so.
Yet it is worth our attention and scrutiny and we shall find out more about this sordid case and whether you had any involvement in the malfeasance.
The easiest way for you to sort this matter out though and clear the ugly rumours that you had asked for the bribe is for you to travel to America, report to the FBI and let them ask you the relevant questions.
If you have nothing to hide or fear I suggest you do this as soon as possible so that we can finally clear the air.
Permit me to add that there are things you did many years earlier in the 1980’s and 1990 ‘s that are, to say the least, suspicious and questionable.
We shall look into all these things after which we shall all be in a position to know who has credibility and who does not.
As an opener kindly tell us why can’t you go to America freely without people helping you to get a “special package visa” as they did in 2019?
These things need to be looked into and discussed because you are aspiring to become our President.
You talk about credibility but I am not the one that betrayed my principal and boss and in the process privatised the whole of Nigeria! You did that and if you had the chance you would do it all over again.
The truth is you are nowhere near me in terms of pedigree, credibility, education, upbringing or lineage.
The only thing you have is money and though your wealth may buy houses, cars, gold bars, private jets, political parties and the worship and adulation of your court jesters and cheerleaders it cannot buy CLASS or CHARACTER and neither can it move the finger of God or tamper with the manifest destiny of men.
Permit me to share the words of Mr. Babachir Lawal, the Secretary to the Federal Government during the tenure of President Buhari.
He said,
“I loathe Atiku. He is not a good man and he is easy to manipulate by riffraff. I would prefer to return to Tinubu than be with him. Under Atiku Nigeria would suffer a chaotic crash.”
These are strong words coming from a man who knows you better than most and who comes from your state.
He also said the following:
“Atiku is a man that doesn’t see life in you if you are not a Fulani man. You are nothing. He doesn’t see you if you are not a Fulani man… I can’t say maybe as a Muslim, but if you are not a Fulani man, you are entitled to nothing from him or for him or by him.”
Lawal’s words are instructive and plausible.
More importantly they provide the basis of an explanation for your pompous airs, vain mien, divisive nature, inexplicable errors of judgement, unacceptable behaviour, self-serving characteristics, treacherous disposition, deceitful ways, insatiable greed, pathological lust for power, insufferable arrogance and unfathomable and never-ending sense of entitlement.
Be rest assured that my criticism of you will not stop despite your words to me on WhatsApp or the puerile nonsense your minions are pushing out.
Yet despite that I still wish you well as you prepare for retirement from politics after you lose to President Tinubu on January 16th 2027.
Permit me to add the following.
Since you raised the issue of credibility, this is for the record.
I was prosecuted in four courts over 18 years on criminal charges that were all politically motivated. There were four cases. I appeared before 12 judges, including at the Court of Appeal, and by the grace of God I won every one of them.
I was detained for 10 days in 2008, three months in 2016, and a further three months later that year: 6 months and 10 days in all, in hideous conditions. For weeks I was held in the Boko Haram section of Kuje prison with only Boko Haram prisoners, to punish and silence me. It failed.
For those 18 years a daily media trial pronounced me guilty without evidence or conviction. Two of my wives and two of my children were harassed by the security forces.
One was locked in a bank in Ekiti with my one-year-old son, surrounded by armed men, for six hours, for no just cause.
I never complained publicly. I took it as a test from God, kept my faith, and trusted my lawyers.
I also trusted the Nigerian judiciary, which refused to be intimidated into jailing an innocent man.
I went through that storm with humility and dignity. I did not lament, claim persecution, or beg for a soft landing. Yet you question my credibility.
I will not let that go. I paid my dues, proved my innocence, and earned my credibility.
Through it all I never broke. I counted it as joy and continuously gave God thanks.
I am one of the most investigated and prosecuted politicians in Nigeria’s history. The system wanted me jailed because I trod on powerful toes. I was discharged and acquitted in every case.
Only when you and your gang have faced the same scrutiny, the same ordeal, and come out cleared of every charge can you talk to me about credibility.
Until then you still have questions to answer. Do not raise my so-called lack of it again.
Permit me to conclude with the following.
Is “credibility” paying 1.2 million USD to a malicious and malevolent U.S.- based convicted criminal who uses 9 different names, including his wife’s surname, who is a specious liar, who calls every single member of our Government corrupt and our people ignorant, who describes our President as a drug dealer, drug smuggler, gangster, coward, terrorist, peddler of white heroin, kidnapper and murderer every day on his X handle, who name-drops like there is no tomorrow, who says our President and officials must be treated as lepers at international events like UNGA, who celebrates the acts of terrorism that our people are being subjected to by foreign sponsored non-state actors and who threatens and seeks to intimidate every Nigerian who challenges or opposes him or seeks to defend the name and honor of our nation and President with visa bans and lawsuits in America?
Is hiring this American-based dog who constantly seeks to hide his Nigerian and Igbo ancestry and replace it with a European and American one due to his low self-esteem and a big chip on his shoulder your definition of credibility?
Can’t you fight your battles yourself instead of getting animals to do it from the safety of America for you in an attempt to avoid the consequences of breaking our laws?
There is no country on earth, including America where your dog lives, that will allow a cowardly criminal like your agent, Karl Von Batten and his so-called PR Company, to say and do what he does to a sitting President without any evidence to prove his allegations without facing the full wrath of the law and being brought to justice.
Yet you regard using such foreign-based slanderers, liars, scammers, agents of chaos, masters of perfidy and professional character assassins as being right and proper simply because you wish to destroy our President’s name and reputation, traumatise him and his family to a point of no return and take his seat?
That is what you regard as being honorable and credible?
The truth is that you do not know the meaning of either of those two words and over the coming weeks during the course of the presidential election this will be proved.
You will be exposed for the incompetent, narcissistic, power-hungry megalomaniac and despicable creature that you are and the Nigerian people will be made aware of how your quest for power is a grave danger to the welfare, unity and future of the Nigerian state.
Let me remind you.
You betrayed Shehu Musa Yar’adua, your mentor, and ran away with your tail between your legs to live abroad when he was wrongly jailed and eventually murdered.
You betrayed Olusegun Obasanjo who made you Vice President.
You betrayed Bola Ahmed Tinubu who saved your political career and rehabilitated you by bringing you into his party ACN.
You betrayed Goodluck Ebele Jonathan after he brought you back to PDP.
You betrayed Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu again after they brought you into the APC.
You betrayed Wike and the PDP after they let you back into their ranks and gave you their presidential ticket in 2019.
You not only betrayed but also destroyed and shattered the soul and foundation of the PDP in 2023 after you violated their zoning formula, conspired with others to deny the South the presidential ticket even though it was their turn, took it for yourself and split the party.
Finally you betrayed the ADC, whose flag you are now flying, by hijacking it from a hard-working and decent young man called Nafiu Bala Gombe and then later splitting it up by driving away leaders like Peter Obi and Rabiu Kwankwaso, compelling them to go and form their own party and rigging your way into getting the presidential ticket.
Are these constant betrayals and habitual acts of sabotage and treachery what you would describe as credible behaviour Waziri?
If you believe so then you really do need to see a psychiatrist.
I urge you, nay I implore you, not to send me anymore private messages.
If you have anything to say to me, say it yourself and say it publicly.
Needless to say I will respond publicly with vigour and candour.
That is what being credible is all about!
Despite all this, I still refuse to call you Kachalla.
Shalom my Waziri.
(Chief Femi Fani-Kayode is a former Minister of Culture and Tourism, a former Minister of Aviation and Nigeria’s High Commissioner-Designate to South Africa, Lesotho and Estawani)
