The Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to former vice president Atiku Abubakar, Phrank Shaibu, has challenged the Presidency to explain the Bola Tinubu administration’s Washington lobbying arrangement, said to be worth up to $9 million, rather than continue what he described as an investigation into the ancestry and marriage of American lobbyist Karl Von Batten.
Shaibu made the demand in reaction to a statement by Sunday Dare, a presidential spokesman.
He said the Tinubu administration entered a Washington lobbying arrangement with DCI Group worth $750,000 monthly, amounting to $4.5 million for the first six months, “with contractual provisions capable of taking the engagement to $9 million.”
Shaubu added that the arrangement was “conducted through Aster Legal in connection with a senior federal security institution.”
According to him, Dare’s latest statement “is not a rebuttal. It is a tantrum dressed in presidential grammar.”
He accused the presidency of avoiding questions raised by existing American records by instead scrutinising Von Batten’s marriage, ancestry, names and business history.
Shaibu maintained that Atiku’s $1.2 million engagement with the firm Von Batten-Montague-York was voluntarily registered with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act FARA. “The filing openly states the nature of the engagement, its duration and compensation. You cannot expose what was publicly disclosed,” he said.
He raised questions about a historical United States federal narcotics and money-laundering investigation linked to the president, and a decree by a United States District Court forfeiting $460,000 held in an account bearing his name.
“These are not documents written by Atiku. They were not manufactured by Karl Von Batten. They are part of an American judicial record,” Shaibu said, while clarifying that “a civil forfeiture is not a criminal conviction. We have never said otherwise.”
Describing what he called the “new Villa morality,” Shaibu contrasted the administration’s posture on the two lobbying deals. “Tinubu spends millions lobbying Washington: diplomacy. Atiku spends $1.2 million lobbying Washington: desperation. What magnificent hypocrisy. If Atiku’s $1.2 million for an entire year is evidence of desperation, what exactly should Nigerians call Tinubu’s arrangement of up to $9 million? National distress?”, he asked.
He argued that both camps were entitled to engage lobbyists in Washington, insisting that “Washington does not belong to the Nigerian Presidency,” and describing the presidency’s focus on Von Batten as “an obvious diversion.”
Shaibu urged the presidential communications team to instead address domestic economic concerns, adding that “Nigerians cannot eat Sunday Dare’s press releases” and “cannot fuel their cars with his insults.”
Taking up Dare’s position that elections should be decided on domestic performance, Shaibu said: “Let us discuss Tinubu’s domestic performance. Let us discuss food. Let us discuss transport. Let us discuss electricity. Let us discuss insecurity. Let us discuss the collapsing purchasing power of Nigerian families.”
He also questioned why an administration he said was performing well domestically would need “a multimillion-dollar lobbying machine in Washington to explain those wonders to foreigners. Before counting Atiku’s $1.2 million, account for your own $9 million arrangement. And before abusing the messenger, answer the $460,000 question. The rest is noise”, he stated.
