Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), says he “rescued” Atiku Abubakar from former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Abubakar, former vice-president and now standard-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had a running battle with his former principal for years.

Both men reconciled in the build-up to the 2019 general election.

Obasanjo also endorsed Abubakar for the presidency during the 2019 polls, saying that he was better than incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari.

However, for the 2023 presidential election, Obasanjo has since thrown his weight behind Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP).

Speaking on Monday at a campaign rally in Uyo, capital city of Akwa Ibom, the former governor of Lagos said Abubakar and his party are just about “stomach infrastructure”.

“They don’t have a mandate; what they have is ice cream. It has melted. I am the one that rescued him from Obasanjo who wanted to roast him like goat meat,” he said.

“He ran away to Dubai, and when the election came again, he came for stomach infrastructure. He came to Lagos. We rehabilitated him and gave him a ticket but he wasted it and used it to collect money.

“He faced Obasanjo, faced Buhari and failed. He failed with Jonathan. He failed in all his subjects.

“You better watch him before he starts selling the little palm trees that you have left. What we need to do is to develop our country. We have enough gas reservoirs on our land.

“Akwa Ibom, you will not suffer again. That boy [Emmanuel Udom] that brought Atiku here, that calls himself governor, tell him enough is enough. He lived in my backyard in Lagos. If not that we are one, I’d have driven him home.”