Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said contrary to rumours peddled around, he has been applying for the United States Visa but was denied on administrative grounds.
The former Vice President revealed this in an interview with The Boss newspaper, published by Dele Momodu.
“I applied, but wasn’t issued a visa. However, they did not decline me categorically either. They’ve only said my application is going through administrative process,” he said.
“It is the sole prerogative of America to determine who they want in their country or not. I’m not running away from America,” he stated further.
The former vice-president said such administrative denials were not unique to him, insisting that President Muhammadu Buhari could not also enter the country for 15 years due to his religious views.
TheNewsGuru.com reports that there had been wide speculations that Atiku’s run in with U.S. authorities stemmed from a broadband contract award to iGate, an America company which Williams Jefferson, then U.S. federal lawamker from Louisiana, had interest in.
Jefferson was said to have used his political influence and friendship with Atiku to ensure that the contract went smoothly in Nigeria with intentions to pay some kickbacks to Nigerian officials, including the former vice president.
Jefferson revealed in a secretly recorded conversation with the FBI that Atiku stood to benefit up to $500,000 for helping influence the broadband deal in Nigeria at the time.
Although Jefferson lost his representative seat and served jail term in America for the deal, Atiku was never prosecuted in Nigeria. It is also not clear if Atiku was indicted in the U.S over the case.
“On the issue of corruption, I have challenged anyone, anywhere, who has any evidence of corruption against me to come forward. I’m sure they would have combed everywhere trying to find anything incriminating against me, but they have not found it, or they are still searching,” he said.
Atiku who served as vice-president from 1999-2007 with former President Olusegun Obasanjo has largely been a businessman since retiring from Nigeria Customs Service decades ago.
He dismissed his critics and contenders as lacking basic entrepreneurial knowledge, hence the reason they despise him for his own business acumen.
“Let any of those who want to compete with me show what they have managed successfully,” he said.
The former vice president who recently decamped from the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is tipped to run for Presidency in 2019.