The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) to leave its candidate in the February 23 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar alone and face their woes.
The main opposition party is reacting to a statement by the APC, resorting to what the PDP described as “fabrications, insults and attempts to invent allegations” against the former Vice President.
In the said statement by the APC, issued on Thursday and signed by its spokesman, Lanre Isa-Onilu, the governing party had stated inter alia, “Predictably, some desperate individuals, sore losers, and their sympathisers are acting in vain trying to pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians.
“Of course, the disgruntled presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alh. Atiku Abubakar is expectedly the patron and cheerleader of the unpatriotic elements who would rather bring our country down for being rejected at the polls”.
It was the APC’s reaction to the aborted RevolutionNow#, championed by the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), Omoyele Sowore.
But in a statement Friday by the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party reiterated its call to the Presidency and the APC to face their “self-inflicted resentment” from Nigerians.
According to the PDP, the governing party and its leaders should answer for their “misrule” for which compatriots have now become agitated on all fronts.
In the opinion of the PDP, it is “despicable” that the Buhari Presidency and the APC have not yet realised that Nigerians are aware that since their defence fell apart at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, they have become nervous and desperate to invent any means to frame and drag down Atiku Abubakar; a plot which the PDP said, has already failed.
“It is indeed not surprising that the APC, in its desperation, is now playing opposition, which is a role fitting of it, being that it does not have the mandate of the people; the very reason it cannot command the respect, loyalty and support of the citizens in the midst of its misrule”, the party added.
It maintained that Atiku Abubakar, as a leader of choice, has never faltered in displaying the highest sense of patriotism, restraint and decorum in his positions on national issues.
Insisting that Atiku stands with overwhelming majority of Nigerians, the PDP said its presidential candidate cannot be intimidated or distracted from pursing the retrieval of his “stolen” presidential mandate at the tribunal.
The PDP said: “Instead of fixating on Atiku, the APC should help the Commander-in-Chief to provide answers for escalated insecurity in our country under his watch; with insurgents, marauders, bandits and kidnappers holding our nation hostage and turning her into a killing field and large funeral palour in the last four years.
“Furthermore, the APC should rather be helping President Buhari to answer Nigerians on how his administration wrecked our once robust economy, entrenched corruption, frittered trillions of naira, turned our nation into world poverty capital and foisted joblessness, acute hunger and starvation; human right abuses and downright impunity, which have spurred resentment to the extent that Nigerians are now desperate to take their destinies in the hands with many resorting to suicide and slavery missions abroad.
“Moreover, the APC should look inwards, do some soul searching and face the miseries it sired instead of seeking for a scapegoat where there is none.
“Let it therefore be known to the APC and the Buhari Presidency that the PDP and Nigerians stand with Atiku Abubakar in the collective national determination to retrieve our stolen presidential mandate at the court and we are confident that justice for the people will prevail at the end of the day”.