‘I’m not a man of divided loyalty’ – Babachir Lawal on why he didn’t work with Atiku

A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Babachir Lawal, has disclosed that the African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, wanted to work with him.

Lawal disclosed that he could not work with Atiku because he was engaged in the administration of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari.

In an interview with Diaspora Digital Media, the former SGF also said he could not work with Atiku because he is not a man of divided loyalty.

According to Lawal: “Seeing me here I wanted to work with him, Atiku. The reason that I could not work with you before was because I was working with Buhari and I’m not a man with divided loyalty. Now my Oga has finished and returned to Daura, I can work with you.

“We can United the Igbos but can you unite the North to do bloc votes? I said I can because of Atiku and I came here.

“I called some people like Tambuwal, Tambuwal, and three other people on the need to unite the North.

“I said whichever candidate we decide to support we will give him bloc votes, we did two, three meetings and we agreed that we should expand because five people can’t do this job, we increased to five per state, later it became so popular and we were doing hundred per states.”

The face-off between Lawal and Atiku stems from the decision of the former SGF to resign from the ADC in June 2026.

Following his resignation, the former SGF alleged that the party’s 2027 presidential primaries were massively rigged in Atiku’s favour.

Lawal had claimed that results at various levels were rewritten to favour Atiku and his associates, adding that he refused to be part of a “rigging machine”.

He claimed to possess documentary evidence of collation discrepancies.

Lawal publicly characterized an eventual Atiku presidency as a continuation of a “Muslim-Fulani” power monopoly.

But Atiku’s camp fired back, attributing Lawal’s outbursts to personal bitterness rather than facts.

They noted that the same primary process Lawal condemned also produced his own allies for other positions without his prior objection.