Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, yesterday engaged in another media war over attacks on President Muhammadu Buhari by the opposition.
Tinubu said the plot by Atiku and the PDP to de-market the achievements of the Buhari presidency and the governing party would fail, as Nigerians won’t give in to their lies.
But in a swift reaction Atiku asked Tinubu to stop comparing the prosperous years of the PDP to the famished years of the APC in office, saying it further confirms that the APC presidential campaign is plagued by a lying spirit.
Tinubu hasd fired the first salvo when told Atiku and the PDP that in a sane society it would be difficult for those who had ruined the country to assume leadership positions.
According to him, all sneaky moves by the opposition to rewrite their ugly past that has plundered the country into the abyss of suffering will hit the rocks.
Tinubu, in a statement issued yesterday in Abuja by the director, Media and Publicity, of the APC presidential campaign council, Bayo Onanuga, warned that recent slanderous utterances by the leaders of the opposition PDP and its presidential candidate against the ruling APC and President Buhari were not only insulting but an abuse of the collective intelligence of Nigerians.
The former Lagos governor said Nigerians have not forgotten the atrocious era of the opposition party, even as he noted that nobody would now accept all the lies being peddled by the PDP leaders in desperation for cheap votes ahead of next year’s elections.
In the statement, Onanuga reminded the PDP and its candidate of their failed attempt to change its name due to its atrocious record, by mounting podiums and trying to deodorise and beautify the party’s ugly era.
He stated: “Leaders of Peoples Democratic Party and its Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar are playing on our seeming forgetfulness and insulting our collective intelligence.
“Having consistently shown lack of capacity for introspection, PDP Leaders have been going about the country slandering the All Progressives Congress-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, believing that as Nigerians we have forgotten their atrocious era and that we are unappreciative ignoramuses.
“Notably Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the party that once contemplated changing its brand name because of its atrocious record, has been emboldened by our assumed forgetfulness as a nation, mounting podiums and trying to deodorise and beautify the party’s ugly era.”
On Atiku’s claim recently at a rally in Jos that the APC was responsible for the emergence of Boko Haram, Onanuga reminded the former vice president that the insurgents emerged in 2009 under his party’s watch.
He said, “He blamed Buhari over the economic challenges, forgetting that he opportunistically joined the coalition that toppled the clueless PDP government of President Jonathan, when the economy was nose diving.
“Atiku has now been joined by Abubakar Saraki, the failed Senate President and saboteur-in-chief of the Buhari agenda, who in his latest comment in Ilorin, urged Nigerians to “go back to the PDP at both the State and the national levels”. In the famous words of Dino Melaye, we say “PDP: God forbid”.
“Pushing his party’s propaganda to insane level, Saraki said: ‘From my trip round the country, I discovered that Nigerians are tired of the ruling APC government because they are overwhelmed with hardships,’.
“The truth be told, PDP in a sane society should not be canvassing for votes to be returned to office, when during their 16 years in power, they laid the foundation for the challenges we face today”.
Onanuga implored Nigerians not forget what the PDP which he described as party of looters did to the nation’s treasury, “depleting foreign reserves to $28 billion by May 2015, even though a record N75 trillion flowed into the treasury from oil sales alone, with almost nothing to show.
“Let us not forget that the party of looters nurtured the conditions that led to the emergence of Boko Haram on our soil and it was so clueless about how to deal with the menace as our cities and people were bombed and maimed by Boko Haram terrorists”.
The PDP, he further said, “allowed the insurgents to declare a Caliphate on our soil, controlling 17 local governments in Borno State and four in Adamawa, making Atiku unable to go to Jada, his hometown”.
Urging Nigerians not forget the 16 years of PDP rule, he added: “The PDP left our infrastructure decrepit, highways impassable after allotted money to contractors had been shared by party stalwarts.
“Let us not forget that this party now posing as recovery agents had already grounded our country and made our economy comatose before Buhari took over on 29 May 2015.
“Let us not forget that the two poorest states in our country, Sokoto and Bayelsa are states being governed by the PDP in the last 8 years”.
He further noted that the Buhari administration has spent the last seven years and a half years trying to clear the mess left by his PDP predecessors.
The APC campaign spokesman continued: “Despite the challenges faced on the economic front, among which is dwindling revenue exacerbated by oil theft, the government has been able to showcase many game changing projects.
“One of them which temporarily opened 15 December, is the Second Niger Bridge. The PDP promised the South East states and Ifeanyi Okowa’s Delta state that it would do the bridge. For 16 years, the party made one empty promise after another. Muhammadu Buhari in 2018 decided to take on the project. He awarded it all over again and in record time the 1.6 kilometres long bridge is ready.
“And it comes with other ancillary infrastructure including a 10.3 km highway, a bypass to Owerri and a toll station at Obosi.
“While we promise Nigerians that our presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will build on Buhari’s legacy and improve the economy and the security situation, we can only say to the PDP: “Nigerians have rejected you and our people will not buy your lies again!”
But firing back at Tinubu, the PDP candidate said the governing party cannot compare the prosperous years of the PDP to the its famished years in office, which he said further confirms that the APC presidential campaign is plagued by a lying spirit.
Speaking through the spokesman of the Atiku/Olowa campaign council, Kola Ologbondiyan, the former VP said it is as clear as the sunlight that life in Nigeria was exceptionally better under the PDP before Tinubu and his APC beguiled Nigerians and brought in a deceptive, corrupt and incompetent administration that has wrecked on the economy and foisted an era of pain, sorrow, anguish and mass killing on the nation.
In a statement he issued yesterday evening, Ologbondiyan said it is unfortunate that at a time when Nigerians expect Tinubu to be remorseful and ask for forgiveness, he is going around with another box of lies with which he intends to beguile Nigerians once again.
He noted: “If there is any political party in the world that should never seek for electoral votes because of its many failures, that party is the incompetent, deceptive and insensitive APC.
“Nigerians are already aware that the Tinubu campaign is trying to divert public attention from its inability to articulate or process issues of governance as well as Asiwaju Tinubu’s incapacity to debate either in the media or public space.
“The continued resort of the TInubu/ Shettima Campaign to diversionary tactic shows Tinubu’s acceptance of the superiority of the Candidate of the People Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar.
“In any case, it is imperative for the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign to know that Nigerians are still waiting for their response to the litany of allegations sorrounding Asiwaju Tinubu’s smelly past.
“The Tinubu/Shettima Campaign should help their principal to address the issues of alleged perjury, forgery, treasury-looting, 6identity theft as well as links with narcotics for which he forfeited a whooping $460,000 to the United States of America.
“After that, they should help Asiwaju Tinubu to draft a letter of apology to Nigerians for deceiving and making them suffer this much,” he said.
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