A presidential aide, Jamiu Abiola who is also a son of the late presidential candidate in the 1993 election, Chief MKO Abiola has said the calls for President Bola Tinubu to resign following the controversy surrounding his academic records are unnecessary and could throw the country into chaos.
There have been calls in some quarters for President Tinubu to resign and save the country from further embarrassment following the controversy surrounding his certificate from Chicago State University (CSU).
Stating his position in a chat with The Punch, Abiola said his principal would never resign because that would spell doom for Nigeria, adding that it would be worse than June 12, 1993.
The presidential aide said asking a sitting President who has started exercising his executive powers in the interest of Nigerians to resign would be catastrophic for the nation.
Abiola said he was disappointed that the 2023 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, went too far by approaching American courts to request the release of Tinubu’s academic documents.
He said: “The President will never resign because that would spell doom for Nigeria. It would even be worse than June 12 because, unlike my father, he is a sitting President and has started exercising his executive powers in the interest of Nigerians. To ask him to resign would be like asking a mother to put her children back into her womb.
“However, I’m so disappointed with the opposition for going that far, approaching American courts when they knew they didn’t have a case. We are talking of a former Mobil treasurer and a two-term governor of the most sophisticated state in Africa’s most populous country. The whole thing is ridiculous.
They (the opposition) are acting as if we don’t have courts here in Nigeria, which makes me wonder why they want to rule a country they don’t believe in. I can’t believe that this is the same Vice-President Atiku who stepped down for my father and supported him during his presidential primaries.
“I wonder when Africans would stop embarrassing our continent abroad as if Africa has not suffered enough. The more I think of that case in the US, the more I see it as some kind of conspiracy reminiscent of when the Sani Abacha government took the State of New York to court for its decision to name a corner in New York after my mother, the late Alhaja Kudirat Abiola. May her soul rest in peace.”