We Didn’t Rely On Foreign Backers – Atiku’s Camp Replies Buhari

The camp of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has denied the claim that it relied on foreign backers to win the 2023 presidential election.

Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari said while the All Progressives Congress (APC) worked hard to retain power in the 2023 general elections, opposition parties lost due to reliance on foreign backers.

The President also opined that a blend of overconfidence, complacency, and poor tactical moves cost the opposition parties their desired victory and sank them into a post-election crisis.

In an interview with The Punch, the spokesman of the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation, Daniel Bwala, said the president was wrong for saying that the opposition parties relied on foreign backers.

Bwala stated that Buhari made the statement in a bid to please the President-elect, Bola Tinubu after it was claimed that the president did not support the former Governor of Lagos State.

He said: “Who are the foreign backers? This is not surprising to me personally. The reason is because, from a vantage point of view, I know that nothing that comes out of the President’s mouth at the moment in a bid to please Tinubu would be enough. () In the build-up to the election and even the primaries of the APC, it was believed that Buhari did not work for Tinubu or he did not want Tinubu to win. Whether this is true or not remains to be seen.

So in the general election, you remember when they were fighting each other. The campaign council said the presidency was not supporting them, the presidency was against them, naira redesign was produced to make them lose. There were lots of fingers-pointing among them. Tinubu had to do what he did. So Buhari is trying as much as possible to please him.”