A senior aide to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, has launched a blistering attack on President Bola Tinubu’s media team, accusing the Presidency of hypocrisy over its criticism of Atiku’s engagement of a US lobbyist.
Mr Shaibu, in a statement on Wednesday, challenged the Presidency to explain an alleged multimillion-dollar Washington lobbying arrangement linked to the Tinubu administration before questioning Atiku’s reported $1.2 million engagement with US lobbyist Karl Von Batten-Montague-York.
He said instead of addressing the issues raised over the records, Mr Dare and officials at the Presidency had focused on the background, marriage, ancestry and business history of Karl Von Batten-Montague-York, the US lobbyist engaged by Mr Atiku.
“Sunday Dare’s latest epistle is not a rebuttal. It is a tantrum dressed in presidential grammar,” Mr Shaibu said.
He accused the presidential aide and the administration’s communication team of “investigating Karl Von Batten’s marriage, ancestry, names and business history” instead of responding to what he described as documented records in the United States.
“At this rate, perhaps their next press statement will tell Nigerians the colour of his socks and what he eats for breakfast,” he said.
The statement followed a recent exchange between the Presidency and supporters of Mr Atiku over the former vice president’s reported engagement of a US lobbying firm ahead of the 2027 general election.
Mr Shaibu argued that Mr Atiku’s engagement with Von Batten-Montague-York was voluntarily registered with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
He said the filing disclosed the nature, duration and compensation of the engagement, insisting that there was nothing clandestine about the arrangement.
“You cannot expose what was publicly disclosed,” he said.
Mr Shaibu, however, challenged Mr Dare to address what he described as historical US federal records relating to President Tinubu.
He asked why Mr Tinubu’s name had been connected to a historical US federal narcotics and money-laundering investigation and why, according to him, a US District Court had entered a decree forfeiting $460,000 held in an account in Mr Tinubu’s name.
“These are not documents written by Atiku. They were not manufactured by Karl Von Batten. They are part of an American judicial record,” he said.
The Atiku aide, however, acknowledged that civil forfeiture was different from criminal conviction.
“Let us also be precise: a civil forfeiture is not a criminal conviction. We have never said otherwise. But neither Sunday Dare nor his colleagues can abuse a court record out of existence,” he said.
Mr Shaibu also accused the Tinubu administration of double standards over the issue of political lobbying in Washington.
According to him, while the Presidency had portrayed Mr Atiku’s $1.2 million engagement with a US lobbyist as evidence of desperation, the Federal Government itself had entered into a Washington lobbying arrangement with DCI Group worth $750,000 monthly.
He claimed the arrangement amounted to $4.5 million for the first six months and contained provisions capable of taking its value to $9 million.
He said the arrangement was conducted through Aster Legal in connection with a senior federal security institution.
“Tinubu spends millions lobbying Washington: diplomacy.
