From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), has said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, are chasing shadows by demanding for the full name, early education and parentage of its presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
It announced that the matters have already been thrown into the dustbin decades ago, noting that it was not surprised that the desperate Atiku camp, faced with mounting setbacks in its campaign could engage in such allegations again.
The PCC was reacting to the statement by Atiku’s special media assistant, Phrank Shaibu, challenging its candidate to give his full name, early education and parentage.
But the statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media & Publicity, APC PCC, described the latest allegation as another attempt at shadow boxing.
“Having failed to pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians on its 16 years of infamous, criminal sabotage of our fatherland, in which Atiku, as the overseer of the privatisation of our national assets programme, shortchanged our people, the PDP has just woken up to the reality that Tinubu’s sure victory in the presidential election of February 25, 2023 is inevitable.
“We were not surprised that the desperate Atiku camp, faced with mounting setbacks in its campaign, will engage in another round of mudslinging, after it failed to make any capital over its amplified allegation of drug dealing against our candidate.
“This latest allegation, we must say, is another attempt at shadow boxing. Hence this desperate resort to character assassination and innuendoes. If only the PDP would go back to its records, it would have realised that the same campaign of reckless calumny was its stock in trade in the governorship campaigns in Lagos State in 2003.
“It had also been a subject of investigation by the Lagos State House of Assembly. In the 2003 election, the masses in Lagos punished the PDP for its malicious campaign and rejected the party massively at the polling booths.
“It is unfortunate that the party and its presidential candidate, Atiku have chosen to revive a dead allegation, knowing that this election is again slipping away.
“Atiku, who once confessed he was the mastermind of the electoral assault by the PDP against the Alliance for Democracy in the 2003 election in the South West, is shamelessly back at his game, showing no contrition that the courts overturned the rigged victories,” the APC PCC quipped in the statement.
Reacting further, the PCC wrote; “We however sympathise with Atiku and his mudslinging agents. We know why they are lashing on every straw available. They are seized with fear that the election is once again lost.
“With the massive turnout of the Nigerian people to welcome our candidate, Bola Tinubu in Kaduna, Minna, Abuja and other parts of Nigeria in the last one week, it is obvious that they are running after a train that has left the station.
“The Constitution of the Republic is very clear on the rights of a citizen to contest for president. Our candidate has fulfilled those conditions. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the impartial umpire has affirmed that he is qualified to run.
“But the PDP and Atiku are utterly confused and in serious disarray and running round in circles like a barber’s chair looking for what is not lost.
“A responsible party should have taken the cue from its losses. In the last two weeks, no fewer than six cases filed by proxies of the PDP on these same frivolous allegations have been thrown out by the courts.
“Yet like a fly that insists on being buried with the corpse, the media handlers of the PDP prefer to flog a dead horse.
The over 93 million registered voters who will vote in the 2023 elections have the intellect to choose who they want as president. That man is Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Yes, that is his name.
“PDP should wait for its day of Judgment rather than engage in this obscurantist, diversionary game, a game that will be determined by the Nigerian masses. We shall surely meet this party of looters at the polls next February,” the statement from PCC read.
