The Presidency on Wednesday dismissed former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar’s comparison of the Bola Tinubu administration to military rule, describing it as “a willful distortion of history and further slide into senile dementia.”
Atiku had made the remarks on Tuesday during the public presentation of the book The Loyalist, authored by the National Publicity Secretary of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), Bolaji Abdullahi, in Abuja. He described the All Progressives Congress-led government as “the worst administration I have witnessed in nearly four decades of political life” and claimed it had caused more damage than past military regimes.
In response, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Communication, Sunday Dare, accused the former vice-president of “cognitive dissonance,” arguing that Atiku’s claim “insults the memory of Nigerians jailed, exiled, or killed under decrees and firing squads so that men like Atiku could enjoy today’s freedoms.”
Dare further stated that Atiku’s narrative “collapses under minimal scrutiny,” noting that in the same republic he brands tyrannical, the former vice-president moves freely, convenes political meetings, grants interviews, and criticises the President under full constitutional protection—liberties that military regimes had historically denied.
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According to Dare, Atiku’s criticism represents “chronic post-election grievance,” with the former vice-president “perfecting the art of recasting himself every four years as the chief mourner of his own electoral defeats.” He added that Atiku’s constant references to tyranny expose “his only ideology as unfulfilled ambition,” dismissing the former vice-president as “less an elder statesman than a cautionary tale” and accusing him of descending into “inflammatory exaggeration” after exhausting his credibility.
At the ADC book launch, Atiku had said the party represents a convergence of political forces determined to rescue Nigeria from what he described as a governance crisis. He argued that Nigerians must build a credible political alternative to salvage the country, claiming that many who helped form the APC were disappointed by the party’s performance in government.
Dare concluded that Atiku’s comparison of a democratically elected government to military dictatorship is “reckless and corrosive,” undermining democratic values, and described the former vice-president’s remarks as “a personal implosion unfolding in public.”