Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has challenged the administration of President Bola Tinubu to investigate and prosecute him if it possesses evidence linking him to wrongdoing in the controversial $16 billion power sector expenditure.

Atiku said repeatedly recycling allegations surrounding the power projects nearly two decades after he left office was no substitute for producing evidence and testing it before a court.

He made the remarks in a statement issued by his Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.

The African Democratic Congress presidential candidate maintained that although he chaired the National Council on Privatisation while serving as vice president, he was not responsible for implementing the power projects.

“I chaired the National Council on Privatisation as Vice President, but I did not oversee the implementation of the power projects. The responsible minister did,” Atiku said.

He said the National Assembly had previously investigated the projects but that he was never invited to answer allegations of wrongdoing.

Atiku then issued a direct challenge to the government.

“It is still not too late. Investigate me. Invite me. Produce the evidence. Prosecute me if you have a case. But propaganda cannot substitute for evidence,” he said.

The former vice president accused supporters of the Tinubu administration of resurrecting the controversy to divert attention from questions surrounding the proceeds of petrol subsidy removal.

He argued that Nigerians were promised that ending the subsidy would free substantial resources for development, but many citizens were still grappling with high living costs.

Atiku consequently demanded an account of how the additional revenues generated since subsidy removal had been deployed.

“So, our question remains brutally simple: where is the people’s money?” he asked.

He also questioned the continued granting of waivers, tax credits, concessions and other fiscal incentives to businesses while the government defended the removal of petrol subsidy as necessary to end what it regarded as an unsustainable intervention.

According to Atiku, it amounted to a double standard to withdraw an intervention benefiting ordinary citizens while maintaining incentives for powerful economic interests.

“The people who removed subsidy from the poor cannot frighten us into silence by resurrecting allegations that governments with all the investigative machinery of the Nigerian state have had nearly two decades to establish,” he said.

Atiku maintained that attacks against him would not stop his demand for greater accountability over public finances.

He challenged the government to either produce evidence and pursue a case against him or discontinue what he described as attempts to distract Nigerians from current economic questions.

“You removed the subsidy. You collected the savings. Where is the money?” Atiku asked