The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council on Sunday night accused the opposition Peoples Democratic Party flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar, and his campaign team of chasing shadows.
The statement of the APC campaign team was a response to the scathing allegation raised by Atiku’s Special Assistant on Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu.
Shaibu had accused the presidential candidate of the APC, Bola Tinubu, of having ‘many things’ to hide by evading debates, non-partisan town hall meetings and live interviews.”
He went further to claim Tinubu built his entire life and persona on falsehood hence his decision to continue to run all over the place
The APC, however, hit back in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by the Director of Media and Publicity for Tinubu-Shettima Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga.
Onanuga stated that Atiku’s camp is jittery and has resorted to clout chasing when it is becoming clear that Tinubu would coast home to victory at the February 25 poll.
The statement read, “Our attention has been drawn to a statement by one Phrank Shaibu, an Atiku Abubakar special media assistant, whose specialty appears to be muckraking.
“In another puerile move, Shuaibu challenged our candidate to give his full name and went on a journey of fantasy about his early education and parentage, matters already thrown into the dustbin decades ago.
“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 shadowboxing. 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 and shortchanged our people.
“The PDP has just woken up to the reality that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s sure victory in the presidential election of 25 February, 2023 is inevitable hence this desperate resort to character assassination and innuendoes.”
Continuing, the APC campaign director disclosed that if the opposition PDP is willing to delve into its records, it would realise that the same campaign of calumny was its stock in trade at the Lagos governorship poll in 2003.
While stating that the action had been a subject of investigation by the Lagos State House of Assembly, Onanuga explained that the Lagos electorates collectively punished the PDP by voting against the party at polling booths.
This is even as the APC campaign team vowed that no mudslinging campaign can stop the party presidential candidate from winning the 2023 election.
He said, “It is unfortunate that the party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar 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.
“We however sympathise with Atiku and his mudslinging agents. We know why they are lashing at 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, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed 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 obvious on the rights of a citizen to contest for president. Our candidate has fulfilled those conditions. The Independent National Electoral Commission, 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. We shall surely meet this party of looters at the polls next February.”
(Punch)
