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From Romanus Ugwu and Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has chided the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, describing them as liars that cannot rewrite their ugly past.
The ruling party claimed that opposition party and its candidate are playing on the seeming forgetfulness of Nigerians and insulting their collective intelligence over their atrocious era that cannot be easily forgotten.
The ruling party in a statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Publicity, APC PCC, noted that “having consistently shown lack of capacity for introspection, PDP leaders have been going about the country slandering the APC-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, believing that as Nigerians we have forgotten their atrocious era and that we are unappreciative ignoramuses.
“Notably Atiku 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.
“Atiku blamed the APC for the emergence of Boko Haram, forgetting that the insurgents emerged in 2009 under his party’s watch. 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 nosediving.
“He 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.’”
The APC PCC statement reads: “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.
“Let us not forget what the party of looters did to our 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.
“Let us not forget that for six years, the PDP 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.
“Let us not forget that 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 in 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 eight years. In the past seven and a half years, the Buhari government has been trying to clear the mess left by the PDP predecessors.
“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 Southeast states and Ifeanyi Okowa’s Delta State that it would do the bridge.
“For 16 years, the party made one empty promise after another. 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!’”
Firing back, the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization said that the APC Presidential Campaign Council is plagued by a lying spirit.
The spokesperson of the Atiku/ Okowa campaign organization, Kola Ologbondiyan, said that was why the ruling party would want to compare its “famished” years in office to the “prosperous” years of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration.
Ologbondiyan, who was reacting to the statement by the APC presidential campaign council, accusing the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the opposition party of allegedly trying to rewrite their ugly past, admonished the ruling party to apologize to Nigerians.
The campaign spokesperson said: “It is as clear as the sunlight that life in Nigeria was exceptionally better under the PDP before Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his APC beguiled Nigerians and brought in a deceptive, corrupt and incompetent administration that has wrecked our economy and foisted an era of pain, sorrow, anguish and mass killing on our nation
“It is unfortunate that at a time when Nigerians expect Asiwaju 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.
“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.”
