THE PEOPLES Democratic Party (PDP) has advised the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, to withdraw from the 2023 presidential race to avoid humiliation.
Briefing journalists in Abuja on Friday, PDP National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba said Nigerians had rejected the ruling party and its candidate because of how the nation’s economy has crumbled under the APC in its seven years reign.
The PDP added that the APC’s desperation for victory in 2023 led it into hiring street artisans, fraudsters and touts and criminally dressing them in bishop’s vestments to orchestrate an endorsement for its collapsing presidential campaign.
According to PDP, Tinubu was ethically challenged and had lost all moral standing to seek election as Nigeria’s president because of a litany of allegations of criminal activities against him.
In addition to the PDP’s call for Tinubu’s resignation on the grounds of his party’s alleged misrule and his own wrongdoings, the PDP said the former Lagos State governor should also resign because of the “nauseating, blasphemous and unpardonable act” by the APC “in hiring street artisans, fraudsters and touts and criminally dressing them in bishop’s vestments to orchestrate an endorsement,” during the unveiling of his running mate, Kashim Shettima, in Abuja on Wednesday.
The party added that Nigerians were sickened by videos and pictorial evidence of known mechanics, bus conductors and fraudsters “sacrilegiously being dressed in fake bishop vestments and paid to endorse Shettima during his unveiling”.
The PDP described the APC’s alleged action as an embarrassment to leadership.
According to the PDP, it is laughable that instead of being remorseful and asking for forgiveness, the APC presidential campaign resorted to tendering “lame excuses in the face of hard and verified evidence of its involvement in the shameless venture”.
Besides, the opposition party said its victory at the last Saturday’s governorship election in Osun State, where it defeated the APC’s candidate and incumbent Governor Gboyega Oyetola, from Tinubu’s South-West region, was a signal that Nigerians had rejected the APC and its candidates.
The party argued that APC, which Tinubu helped to bring into power, has wrecked the country’s economy and caused millions to starve.
It claimed that the nation’s over $550 billion economy, with a naira value of N167 to the dollar handed over to the APC by the PDP in 2015, had been brought to its knees, with the naira now crawling at N665 to a dollar.
“Under Asiwaju (Tinubu) APC government, Nigeria’s debt stock has astronomically risen from N12 trillion under the PDP to N41.6 trillion with our nation going broke as debt servicing cost has now surpassed government revenue with over N300 billion.
“Today, millions of businesses have been shut down due to harsh economic policies and high cost of fuel; unemployment has risen to over 35 per cent, cost of food items, medication and essential services have skyrocketed beyond reach as over 90 million Nigerians are no longer able to afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life. What a tragedy!”
While boasting that Tinubu has no political fighting chance in the contest with its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, the PDP said it would be victorious in the 2023 poll.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2022. Contact him via email @ [email protected].