Adams Oshiomhole, senator for Edo North and former Edo State governor, has sent condolences to Atiku Abubakar after the ex-vice president criticized President Bola Tinubu’s condolence visit to Plateau State.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, Oshiomhole said Atiku was politicizing an issue that should inspire compassion and respect for the deceased.
“I have sympathy for former Vice President Atiku for thinking that even in matters of death and honouring the dead, politics must be involved,” Oshiomhole said. “As an elder statesman, at his age, he should know better.”
Atiku condemned President Tinubu for attending the funeral of Mama Lydia Yilwatda, mother of APC Chairman Prof. Nentawe Yilwatda. He claimed Tinubu ignored victims of insecurity to attend a social event in Plateau State.
Oshiomhole, however, defended Tinubu, saying it was wrong to call the visit insensitive.
He said, “Can anyone accuse the President of being insensitive just because he attended a condolence visit? Even if he went to pay his last respects to the mother of the APC Chairman, what is wrong with that?”
Oshiomhole reminded Atiku’s party of its past actions, recalling his days as a labour leader under President Obasanjo.
“I was practically a one-man opposition when Atiku was Vice President, and they forget in a hurry what they did in office,” he said. “Rather than discuss alternative policy choices for Nigeria, they trivialise politics with arguments about empathy.”
Oshiomhole said Atiku had allowed partisanship to overshadow his judgment and urged him to act as a statesman.
Oshiomhole added, “People view everything in politics through partisan eyes, but I believe he should rise above that.”
