THE candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the 2023 presidential election, Bola Tinubu, has mocked his major rival, Atiku Abubakar, the flagbearer of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 elections over the implosion in the latter’s party.
Tinubu said today that following the new twist in the PDP crisis, the game was over for Abubakar, and that he could only kiss his presidential dream goodbye.
In a statement by his Campaign Council Director for Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, the former Lagos State governor blamed the PDP crisis on Abubakar’s “fallacy that only a northern candidate can win the presidency.”
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The ICIR had reported how Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, attacked the PDP presidential candidate and the party’s leadership today during an interview with select journalists in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
Wike, who dared the PDP leadership to expel him, vowed, among other threats, that Abubakar would fail in the coming polls.
The Rivers State governor had contested the PDP’s ticket with Abubakar, but lost.
His name was among the three nominees submitted to Abubakar as vice presidential candidate, but the latter opted for Delta State governor, Ifeanyi Okowa.
Wike has repeatedly said the only reason he would support Abubakar was for the PDP chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, whom he accused of working against his emergence as the party’s presidential candidate, to resign.
But Ayu has vowed to remain in office.
Tinubu said given Wike’s position, it was all over for Abubakar, who is eyeing the presidency for the fifth time.
Tinubu said, “Once again, another bid for the presidency of our country by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, is slipping away. This is unravelling before our very eyes even before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) blows the whistle on the electioneering campaign.
“His party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is in disarray. The signs are just too ominous for the Waziri, what with the report by the Economic Intelligence Unit predicting another trashing for him in the forthcoming polls.
“After violating his party’s code for power rotation between the North and South and grabbing the PDP ticket without a modicum of sensibilities about our national ethos, Alhaji Atiku is now faced with the karma of his inordinate ambition.”
He added that the PDP had imploded in a battle of attrition, saying the consequence was predictable.
He said the engagement of Abubakar by Wike in a fight to finish had undermined any momentum the PDP candidate hoped to build.
“With the further loss of confidence in PDP by its members who can not find any redeeming feature in the fast disappearing party, it is crystal clear that Atiku’s latest bid for Nigeria’s top job has hit the rocks.
“A pillar of Atiku’s campaign is the claim of being a unifier and nationalist. That bogus claim has now been discredited, even within his party as the disaffected members cry for justice and inclusivity…Instead of being a unifier, Atiku is now a divider-in-chief,” Tinubu said.
The APC candidate also claimed that some of Abubakar’s manifestoes for the coming election were nothing new.
He argued that they were already being implemented by the APC administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Both Abubakar and Tinubu are running against Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NNPP) and other candidates in the presidential election slated for February 25, 2023.
President Muhammadu Buhari has persistently pledged to leave a legacy of free, fair and credible election for Nigerians, which he said would be made possible by the amended Electoral Act he signed into law earlier this year.
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 2023. Contact him via email @ [email protected]
Tinubu forward for ever