The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Sunday explained why he deleted the tweet condemning the murder of a second-year student of Shehu Shagari College of Education in Sokoto, Deborah Samuel.
Deborah was lynched by a mob for alleged blasphemy in May.
The former Vice President who condemned the heinous act on his Twitter handle later deleted the post to the chagrin of Nigerians.
Abubakar’s decision generated reactions from Nigerians on social media with many berating him for exhibiting double-standard on the matter.
Efforts by the PDP candidate to placate Nigerians on the matter had however fallen on deaf ears.
Abubakar, who spoke at Channels Television’s town hall meeting in Abuja, said the removal of the tweet was not approved by him.
The former Vice President insisted that he condemned the unlawful killing in his subsequent reactions.
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He said: “I have been asked this question several times, and the answer I always give is, I deleted the tweet because I didn’t approve it. I normally approve of every tweet. So I asked the tweet to be deleted because I didn’t approve it.
“And if you read my subsequent reactions on that matter, I condemned it. There is nowhere where it’s an injunction in the Islamic faith to kill someone. You have to follow due process.”
Meanwhile, the spokesman for All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, has berated the Vice President over his response to the question on the removal of the controversial tweet.
Keyamo, who reacted to the development on his Twitter handle, described as a lie Abubakar’s claim that he condemned the killing in his subsequent reactions.
He wrote: “This is the most cunning reply from a cunning politician: ‘I deleted the tweet because I did not authorise it, but I subsequently condemned the murder’. A simple google search does not show any subsequent CLEAR condemnation. And then the BIG QUESTION: Why not restore the tweet?”