The Tinubu Campaign Organization(TCO) has lambasted the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar for what they call shady business dealings.
While on a recorded interview on Arise TV on Friday, Atiku said he had a side business in the form of a taxi service while he was at the helm of the Nigerian Customs Service.
He had claimed in the interview that his actions were not illegal, but TCO begged to differ.
TCO’s Director, Media & Communication, Bayo Onanuga, Atiku was termed a “lawbreaker.”
Onanuga said, “PDP candidate is a lawbreaker. It was most shocking Atiku admitted that he cheated the system for decades and engaged in gross misconduct as a government worker. As a customs officer at the Idi-Iroko border, Atiku revealed that he ran a commercial taxi service, claiming ‘there is no law stopping public officers from doing business in Nigeria.”
“We found this to be untrue. Every officer in the civil service is expected to comply with a code of conduct and service rules which bar civil and public servants from engaging in private business while in government employment to the detriment of the service he/she is employed to render to the public.
“The 1999 constitution further codifies this in Part I, Fifth Schedule, Section of 2 (b). It says a public officer shall not, except where he is not employed on full-time basis engage or participate in the management or running of any private business, profession or trade. The rules however allow a public officer to engage in farming.
“We wonder which rule or which law Atiku was relying upon for his gross misconduct as a public officer. It is our considered view that Atiku gamed the system all through his career in public service, culminating in his founding of the Intel Logistics along with Late Shehu Yar’Adua and some Italians, even while he was still in the employment of the Nigeria Customs Service.”
