Former vice president Atiku Abubakar has debunked a trending social media report purporting that he donated a new Toyota SUV to Lt. A.M. Yerima, the naval officer who clashed recently with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike.
Atiku said the claim was “pure fiction” and part of a coordinated misinformation circulating around the controversial incident that has dominated public discourse in the past few days.
In a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter), his media adviser, Paul Ibe, said the former vice president had no connection, directly or indirectly to the officer and had not gifted him or anyone else a vehicle.
According to Ibe, Atiku Abubakar did not gift Lt. Ahmed Yerima or any other individual a brand new Toyota SUV, contrary to the false reports currently circulating on social media, and the story is entirely fabricated and should be completely disregarded by the public.
The rebuttal came after several partisan accounts and blogs circulated the claim, suggesting that Atiku was rewarding the officer who prevented the minister from accessing a disputed parcel of land in Abuja.
The report quickly trended, fueling political interpretations and sparking conversation among supporters and critics.
However, Atiku’s camp insisted that the narrative was deliberately crafted to mislead the public and drag the former vice president into a matter he had no involvement in.
Ibe stressed that Nigerians should be wary of politically-motivated propaganda designed to cause confusion at a time when tensions around the land dispute were already high.
The confrontation between Lt. Yerima and Wike, captured in a viral video, has raised fresh debates around land administration in the FCT, abuse of office and relations between civilians and military personnel.
