Former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, and Vice-Presidential candidate in the 1993 general election, Babagana Kingibe, has completely dissociated himself from poster campaigning for his candidacy in the 2019 presidential election.
Campaign posters of Kingibe, running mate to MKO Abiola in the annulled June 12, 1993 elections, had recently flooded major cities including Abuja and Lagos.
However, in a statement published on Friday, the former SGF said the pasting of the posters alongside what he claimed were “phantom allegations” against his person in some petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), were an attempt to malign and defame him.
“My attention has been drawn to the posters being circulated in some cities across the country purporting that I am campaigning to be President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in the 2019 elections. I want to state clearly that I know nothing about the posters. They were neither produced nor authorised by me. I do not know how the posters came about and I know nothing about how they were circulated in those cities. I am experienced enough in politics to know that you do not start a political campaign with posters without talking to anyone about your ambition.
“In any case, I want to state very clearly that I DO NOT have the intention or the desire to contest for any elective post in 2019 or thereafter. I am fully in support of President Muhammadu Buhari and his policies, which I believe will rescue Nigeria from accumulated decay, loss of moral compass and leadership failure. I fervently believe that Nigeria is safe in President Buhari’s hands and he needs to complete and build upon the solid foundations that he is laying.”
Referring to petitions to the EFCC which accuse him of taking money from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), while chairman of the panel set up by Buhari to review the operations of NIA following the discovery of the agency’s funds in a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos, Kingibe said they were not merely co-incidental.
“I am also very much aware of fictitious petitions and statements made to the EFCC and House of Representatives Committee on Security and National Intelligence linking me to some claims of impropriety. The phantom allegations and the pasting of posters are too striking to be co-incidental. This is a miscalculated attempt to malign and defame me.
“I urge all well-meaning Nigerians to please ignore all these fabrications and falsehoods,” he said.
