The political tension between Nigeria’s ruling and opposition blocs flared up again this week after Phrank Shaibu, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to Atiku Abubakar, accused Adams Oshiomhole of using “cheap theatrics” to distract Nigerians from the All Progressives Congress’s mounting failures.
Oshiomhole, a former APC national chairman and current Senator representing Edo North, had mocked Atiku’s recent defection to the African Democratic Congress (ADC), saying the former vice president “lacks the competence to govern Nigeria”.
In a blistering statement issued Tuesday, Shaibu countered that Oshiomhole’s outburst was “no political analysis but an act of desperation from a man defending a sinking ship.”
“Atiku Abubakar was Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, not the national chairman of the PDP, and certainly not the sole administrator of a political institution with thousands of independent leaders,” Shaibu said.
“Leadership in a democratic party is not dictatorship. The PDP, unlike the APC, was not a private estate controlled from Bourdillon, where one individual tele‑guides decisions and stifles internal democracy,” he added .
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Shaibu said Oshiomhole’s comments merely exposed “the APC’s obsession with Atiku,” arguing that Nigeria’s problems stem from the party’s misrule, not anyone who left it.
“If Oshiomhole seeks the man who ‘fixed a party’ into a personal empire, he needs only look at the godfather he serves,” he said, accusing the APC of killing party supremacy and turning national institutions into weapons of control.
Highlighting Atiku’s record as vice president, Shaibu said his economic reforms “strengthened the private sector and attracted investments,” adding that the former vice president’s policy blueprint remains “one of the clearest roadmaps for national recovery.”
He dismissed Oshiomhole’s criticism as part of a coordinated strategy to distract Nigerians from the realities of rising cost of living, policy confusion, and insecurity.
“For eight wasted years and nearly three more under Bola Tinubu, the APC has driven Nigeria into its worst economic decline,” Shaibu said, adding that,“the people are no longer fooled by noise and propaganda.”