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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has urged Nigerians not to vote for the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu on February 25 as doing so is akin to jumping from frying pan to fire.
He said the electorate should not be deceived by the APC candidate’s message of “Renewed Hope” saying what Tinubu was actually offering Nigeria was “hopelessness in disguise” claiming he was mentally unfit to run the country.
The PDP flag bearer stated this, yesterday, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu.
He said the situation of the country would be worse, should Tinubu emerge president.
The PDP candidate, who questioned Tinubu’s mental capacity to lead Nigeria, owing to his many gaffes and slips at the various APC rallies, said the country was facing monumental challenges and does not require a man who constantly needs his handlers to explain his unintelligible messages to Nigerians.
“Tinubu is unfit to rule a country much less a country like Nigeria, which is in a desperate state. Nigeria needs a president who has the mental capacity to get the job done. This is a man whose cognitive capabilities remain in doubt, hence his refusal to attend any debates or town halls, but only attends his own “different town hall,” where he controls the environment. He can hardly answer questions by himself.”
Atiku tasked the electorate to note that whereas the APC candidate started his campaign with a promise to continue with President Muhammadu Buhari’s “impeccable legacy”, he has in the last three weeks been promising to reverse Buhari’s policies.
He urged the electorate to “guard their hearts jealously as the ruling APC will try to use every subterfuge and stratagem in its manual to deceive them once more” saying their recent attacks on Buhari were purely selfish and not pro-masses.
“Tinubu says the petrol scarcity and the naira shortage are aimed at scuttling his ambition. Later, he and his acolytes said they were only voicing out against the policy out of sheer concern for the masses. These are people who never muttered a word when students spent 10 months at home in 2020 and eight months at home in 2022 due to unprecedented university lecturers’ strike. These are people that never criticised the president at the height of the insecurity when schoolchildren were being abducted almost on daily basis and when the naira witnessed a free fall that led to a sharp increase in the price of goods. Tinubu has been campaigning like a drug lord from Paranquuilla, Columbia. He has been very pugnacious, believing that his bullion vans stashed with old Naira notes can deliver the votes to him. Someone needs to tell Tinubu and his band of APC governors to please give up this irritating ostentatious performance of moral propriety. They are not angry about the naira redesign because they love the masses. They are only angry that their plan to unleash bullion vans on poor Nigerians has been thwarted,”Atiku said.
The former vice president charged Tinubu to make up his mind on whether he was running on Buhari’s legacy, or running against it so that innocent voters would know where he stands.
He said if Tinubu become the president of Nigeria, he will turn the country into his personal fiefdom and a one party state by muzzling the opposition as he had allegedly done in Lagos since 1999, as well as turn the National Assembly into his foot stool and “orchestrate the fall of the 4th Republic.
“Tinubu’s reason for not attending debates is obvious even to the feeble minded. Should he attend a presidential debate, how will he be able to answer questions on what primary and secondary schools he attended and why he remains the only candidate in the history of Nigeria not to reveal it in his form CF001? How will he respond to questions about his family lineage or the lingering question of how he became a bagman for a drug cartel, forfeited $460,000 to American authorities, and the moral implications for the nation
“His gaffes at rallies and town halls also put his mental capacity to question. Muttering some unintelligible words at a town hall in Owerri last November, Tinubu stated, ‘This is a town hall different from Balabu blu blu, bulaaba’. He plans to recruit 50 million youths in the Nigerian Army as a means of tackling unemployment, and he believes Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) have expiry dates. These are Tinubu’s words, not mine. He is already a self-written joke and will make Nigeria a laughing stock among the comity of nations if he is allowed to lead this great country…
“Tinubu’s overbearing nature put him on a collision course with many governors, notably Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, who even offered to help the people of Lagos State to put an end to godfatherism. Today, el-Rufai has become Tinubu’s man Friday all because he has been promised the position of Chief of Staff. This is not the kind of man that should lead Nigeria,” Atiku said.
