The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) launched into a fresh fight on Friday after the opposition party accused the ruling party of scheming to postpone the coming elections.
PDP National Publicity Secretary, Barrister Debo Ologunagba said in Abuja that APC had been promoting what he called “many furtive narratives to blackmail critical election stakeholders”.
But the Media and Publicity Director of the APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), Mr Bayo Onanuga dismissed the PDP statement as a “senseless conjecture”.
The APC presidential campaign council in the Southeast also responded to a statement by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, about handing over a “sick” country to a “sick” president.
It called Obi a “quack who issues nostrum testimonials and treats mail patients he has never seen”.
Ologunagba said: “Our party had earlier alerted the nation to a well-oiled plot by the APC to orchestrate the security situation and promote circumstances to warrant the postponement of the 2023 general elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“The ultimate intent of the APC is to use such unfounded circumstances to derail the entire electoral process and impose an undemocratic situation on our country.
“The PDP hereby insists without equivocation that February 25, 2023, presidential and National Assembly election date is sacrosanct. 25th February 2023 date is already locked in for the presidential and National Assembly elections, the security agencies have given their assurances, and the Federal Government has also given its assurance; Nigerians are ready for the election and will not accept any postponement of elections under any guise whatsoever”.
He also accused the APC of promoting and encouraging violence in various parts of the country, including attacking INEC facilities.
The PDP said the APC and its leaders are desperate to use their “doomsday orchestrations” to frighten and blackmail INEC into altering the electoral schedule after which the ruling party will take advantage of the situation to unsettle the general election, foist a constitutional crisis and truncate the nation’s democratic process.
Responding to the PDP allegations, Onanuga said that, while the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has disappeared from the campaign train for weeks, his party resorted to making irresponsible statements to fill media space.
He said: “The electoral umpire has made it abundantly clear its readiness to conduct the elections and these elections will hold as scheduled in February and March this year.
“President Muhammadu Buhari, who has given this country the most credible elections both regular and off-season since 2015, has consistently assured Nigerians, even up to two days ago, that 2023 elections will hold.
“Similarly, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has reiterated President Buhari’s position that the Federal Government has no intention to postpone elections.
“Knowing that it has no path to victory and no real agenda for development to sell to Nigerians by its absentee presidential candidate, PDP has nothing profitable again to engage in other than raising false alarms, manufacturing outright lies, and disseminating innuendos to deceive the public.
“PDP should know that Nigerians have rejected it and no amount of falsehood can redeem a political party that wrecked our economy under its watch, created massive insecurity, and looted money meant for development.
“If we go by what the party’s presidential candidate has been saying, no lesson about the ignoble past has been learnt as he has promised to sell the NNPC Limited assets for just $10 billion, the way he sold prime national assets for peanuts under his care.
“As a party and presidential campaign council, we are focused on the message of renewed hope of our candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima.
“We shall also continue to tell Nigerians about the achievements of the APC-led Federal Government of President Muhammadu Buhari across sectors, especially in areas of infrastructural development, agricultural revolution, and food security, rebuilding of our armed forces with sophisticated hardware and reforms in the oil and gas sector among others”.
On Obi’s “sick-country-sick-country” narrative, the spokesman of the Asiwaju Bola Tinubu Presidential Campaign Council in the Southeast, Dr Josef Onoh likened the LP candidate to a “quack doctor who issues nostrum testimonials and treats mail patients he has never seen”.
Onoh disagreed with Obi about Nigeria being sick, saying: “We agree that our country, like other countries in the world, experiences suffering. It is also full of overcoming it. Healing takes courage and Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu has the courage even if he has to dig deep to find it, unlike the Obidients’ quack doctor who advertises a positive cure for any disease, who issues nostrum testimonials, who sells his services to a secret non-existent remedy, or who diagnoses and treats by mail patients he has never seen, which is typical of a quack doctor.
“This same mobile quack doctor told Nigerians he wants to be president so he can replicate what leaders have done in Singapore, Egypt, etc, in Nigeria, which obviously isn’t the remedy his so-called sick country needs.
“A quack presidential hopeful, like a quack doctor, has no proper knowledge of the right dose, the way drugs act in the body, how to counter adverse/side effects of drugs/economy, and what to do when emergencies/national security issues similar to complex medical situations arise.
“Casting your vote for the Labour Party presidential candidate will only result in unpalatable consequences for our great nation, whom he has disrespected so much and called sick.
“Asiwaju Bola Tinubu said he wants to be president so he can replicate the development we did in Lagos in Nigeria, clearly a huge contrast from the international remedy the Labour Party presidential candidate hopes to import.
“The good news is that Nigeria and Nigerians understand that healing our nation is connected with healing others, we are not a sick country nor have a sick candidate as the quack doctor would wish Nigerians to believe, neither are we victims of aging, sickness, and death.
“These are part of the scenery, not the Obidient quack doctor, who is immune to any form of change. He has focused his campaign on brainwashing the vulnerable youth and select gullible Nigerians while failing to realize the dangers of raising such a mob in the future, especially after his failure at the polls come February because he doesn’t want to heal Nigeria.
“Rather, he hopes to convince the young generation that they need to take back their country which does require such rather than encouraging them to work together and promote their country.
“I ask, take back which country and hand it over to him? Isn’t he afraid of getting infected, too? Clearly, this is a clear case of political scam where the thief tells you to break into your father’s house and steal his money and bring it to him while he waits in the corner street to receive it, and the gullible one falls victim only to realize that he stole his school fees.
“Finally, there is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow. Hence, let’s join hands to support Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and together, we renew hope for Nigeria. The quack doctor, if in doubt, can go and verify”.
