PDP: Why Nigerians Won’t Vote APC, Tinubu

•Says a vote for them is vote for continued poverty, corruption

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The national secretariat of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, called on Nigerians not to waste their votes on other political parties, even as it commended Nigerians for coming out to show solidarity with the party during its presidential campaign.

The party warned that a vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, amounted to a vote for poverty and corruption.

Addressing a world press conference in Abuja, National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Debo Ologunagba, said, “Last Saturday, the grand finale of our presidential campaign rally held in Yola, Adamawa State. The unprecedented crowd and the excitement by Nigerians from across the country demonstrated beyond measure that majority of the people have settled for Atiku Abubakar as the next president of Nigeria.

“Through the course of the campaign, Atiku Abubakar and his running mate, H.E Ifeanyi Okowa, energetically traversed the nooks and crannies of our country, engaging various segments of Nigerians in diverse fora; consultative meetings, interactive sessions, Town Hall meetings, faith-based platforms, media interviews, and political rallies, articulating their plans, solutions and selling the message of hope to Nigerians.”

Ologunagba said Atiku continued to demonstrate that he was a pan-Nigeria leader with the required experience, capacity, integrity, stamina, presence of mind, commitment, sense of duty and readiness to lead our nation at this critical time.

“In contrast, however, the failed All Progressives Congress (APC) and its embattled presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in their vacuity, arrogance and entitlement mentality treated Nigerians with unpardonable disdain by refusing to engage the people in interactive sessions, debates and media interviews. This is a clear indication that the APC and its presidential candidate are incapable and have nothing to offer Nigerians.”

According to Ologunagba, “Since his emergence as the presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Tinubu and the APC have not been able to engage in campaign on issues, rather, their focus has been on individuals and irrelevances, and display of unseriousness and comics.

“Nigerians can recall Tinubu’s display of pitiable incapacities, including difficulty with coordination and articulation, apparent memory problems, incoherencies and blunders for which he has become a butt of joke among our youths.”

He said that was why the Tinubu/Shettima campaign floundered as it grappled and struggled with messaging and direction.

Ologunagba added, “It would be recalled that at the beginning of the campaign, Asiwaju Tinubu, who cannot point to any development project or programme he initiated and executed in his eight years as governor of Lagos State, attempted to appropriate the achievements of his predecessors and successors in office.

“When that failed, the Tinubu/Shettima campaign came up with the promise to continue on the ‘legacies’ of the Buhari-led APC administration. When they realised that such was a serious pitfall given the massive failure of the administration, where Asiwaju Tinubu holds sway as leader, they resorted to a desperate attempt to dissociate Asiwaju Tinubu from the APC administration.

“However, Nigerians cannot be fooled as they can clearly remember the deep involvement of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the current APC government wherein he publicly boasted that he single-handedly installed the Buhari administration.”