Gov. Sule breaks silence, denies secret Atiku meeting to undermine Tinubu

By Kazeem Ugbodaga

The Nasarawa State Government has dismissed as “complete fabrication” a report claiming that Governor Abdullahi A. Sule met with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in Saudi Arabia and pledged financial support to undermine President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid.

In a strongly worded statement released on Friday, the government refuted the story published by the Peoples Gazette, which alleged that the two politicians held a two‑hour dinner at the Conrad Jabal Omar Hotel in Mecca during the lesser Hajj and reached an agreement to oppose the President.

“We wish to state, without any equivocation whatsoever, that this story is a complete fabrication. It is false in its entirety. It did not happen and indeed will not happen,” the statement read.

The statement added that Sule did travel to Saudi Arabia for the lesser Hajj, an act of personal religious devotion, but insisted that at no point did he meet with Atiku or anyone close to him.

“The Governor was not even aware that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was in Saudi Arabia. There was no meeting. There was no two‑hour dinner at the Conrad Jabal Omar Hotel or anywhere else. There was no pledge of financial support. There was no agreement of any kind. The allegations are false, fiction dressed as journalism,” the statement said.

The government also pointed to a telling detail in the original report: when the Peoples Gazette contacted Atiku’s spokesman, Paul Ibe, for confirmation, Ibe reportedly said, “I am not aware of a meeting of that nature.”

“This is a man who has always reported meetings of the former VP,” the statement noted, questioning how such an explosive claim could lack confirmation from either principal’s camp.

The denial further highlighted what it described as the “obvious intent” behind the publication, citing Sule’s public actions just two days earlier.

The statement said at a recent gathering of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the North Central zone, the governor seconded a motion to adopt President Tinubu as the party’s sole presidential candidate for 2027.

“This is a matter of public record,” the statement said, adding that “Governor Sule has consistently and publicly used every available platform to extol the leadership qualities of President Tinubu and to affirm his unshakeable support for the president’s administration and his re-election bid. Governor Sule is not a coward. He doesn’t say one thing in the open and another in secret.”

The Nasarawa government suggested that the story was orchestrated by “desperate and faceless political actors” aiming to damage the relationship between the President and the governor ahead of the 2027 elections.

“That evil plan will fail because all the APC governors are 100% behind Mr President and no amount of primitive journalism sponsored by uncouth politicians can change that,” the statement added.

It also dismissed any notion that the governor might be nursing ambitions contrary to the party’s unity, noting that those behind the “mischief” understand that “as long as that relationship remains solid, their own political ambitions in Nasarawa State stand no chance.”

The government called on the Peoples Gazette to retract the report and issue an apology, arguing that publishing an “exclusive” based entirely on anonymous sources, without confirmation from either of the two principal actors, fell “below any acceptable standard of noble journalism.”

“Governor Sule remains committed to the APC, committed to President Tinubu and the people of Nasarawa State. No amount of political mischief will change that,” the statement said.