Phrank Shaibu, the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, has accused Presidential spokesperson Sunday Dare of dodging serious questions about President Bola Tinubu's record by attacking the credibility of Atiku's Washington lobbyist. In a statement sighted by Legit.ng on Wednesday, September 2, Shaibu said Dare's response amounted to a personal smear campaign rather than a factual rebuttal, with the Villa's communications team reportedly investigating the marriage, ancestry, and business history of Karl Von Batten, a lobbyist engaged by Atiku Abubakar.
The $9 Million Lobbying Question
At the centre of Shaibu's statement is a charge of hypocrisy. He said the Tinubu administration entered a lobbying arrangement with the DCI Group in Washington valued at $750,000 per month, which he described as totalling $4.5 million for the first six months and potentially reaching $9 million. The arrangement, Shaibu said, was conducted through Aster Legal in connection with a senior federal security institution.
By contrast, Atiku's engagement with Karl Von Batten's firm, Von Batten-Montague-York, was worth $1.2 million for a full year and was voluntarily filed with the United States Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). Shaibu argued that publicly registered lobbying activity cannot be treated as a scandal, and that the Villa's moral objection to Atiku's spending rang hollow given its own far larger arrangement.
"Before counting Atiku's $1.2 million, account for your own $9 million arrangement," Shaibu wrote.
The $460,000 Forfeiture Record
Shaibu also pressed Dare on a separate matter involving US court documents, which he said show that a federal court entered a decree forfeiting $460,000 held in an account bearing Tinubu's name, connected to a historical narcotics and money-laundering investigation. He was careful to note that a civil forfeiture does not constitute a criminal conviction, but argued the record could not simply be wished away through insults directed at lobbyists or opposition figures.
He said the documents were part of an American judicial record and were not produced by Atiku or Von Batten.
Cost of Living a Bigger Issue
Beyond the lobbying dispute, Shaibu used the statement to challenge Dare to address the economic conditions facing ordinary Nigerians, including rising food prices, high transport costs, electricity shortages, and the weakening purchasing power of the naira. He argued that an administration requiring a multimillion-dollar lobbying machine in Washington to sell its achievements abroad had little credibility lecturing its opponents about financial propriety.
The statement closed with a campaign line: "Tinubu made Nigeria expensive. Atiku will make Nigeria affordable again."
Atiku Speaks on Tinubu's Certificate Saga
Previously, Legit.ng reported that former Vice President Atiku Abubakar taken a new certificate forgery case to the Federal High Court in Abuja, asking the court to disqualify President Bola Tinubu from contesting the 2027 presidential election. The suit, which came up for its first hearing on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, is separate from the certificate-related challenge Atiku brought against Tinubu during the 2023 elections, which the courts dismissed. The current case centres on the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) certificate that Tinubu submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as part of his documentation to run for president.
