Don’t blackmail me, Jonathan tells Atiku • We have damning documents on president’s campaign team – Atiku

Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation

The Jonathan/Sambo Campaign Organisation ,in a press release, said it has come to its notice that a document being purportedly authored by the campaign organization is circulated to media houses, online media and foreign embassies by the Atiku Abubakar campaign organisation, “With the intention to blackmail the person of President Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and the Goodluck Sambo Campaign organisation.” The release, signed by Mike Omeri, Director Planning, Research & Strategy of the organisation, continued: “This document is the latest desperate act to place obstacles on the path of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in order to stop him from contesting the PDP primaries.”

But the Atiku Campaign Office, in an e-mail sent to Weekly Trust, stated that the oft-repeated assurances by President Goodluck Jonathan that he will deliver on a credible, free-and-fair polls in 2011 may yet be a hoax, if the document they say obtained within the week is anything to go by. The e-mail read: “The 141-page document, ostensibly the brainchild of the Goodluck/Sambo Campaign Organisation details stage-by-stage how the President’s camp will use the machinery of state and agencies including two key institutions that may determine the eventual outcome of the polls (Nigeria Police and Independent National Electoral Commission) to rig the polls.”

Phone calls to the Atiku Campaign Office confirmed the e-mail, which continued: “Essentially, the document focuses on how stop former Vice President and presidential aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who they acknowledge as the “main opposition in the (PDP) primaries; very experienced politician and (was in the) forefront of the fight against 3rd term.”

Excerpts from the e-mail say on page 9 of the document, entitled “Our Combat Strategy/Analysis): How to defeat Mr. Fox (Atiku),” the Jonathan/Sambo camp plans to carry out media covert operations attacking Atiku’s platform; “Open his wardrobe and expose his misdeeds; Distract him through political horse-trading; Use his own men to break his ranks.