Atiku avoids issues because ‘this election is again slipping away’ from him
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Atiku Abubakar is chasing a mirage and mudslinging because he knows he will lose his sixth Aso Rock race, All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Bola Tinubu has said, in a riposte to the latest accusation levelled at him.
APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) in turn accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate of applying the same template of tactics that failed him in the past because Tinubu has been investigated and exonerated.
The APC campaign team was reacting to the scathing allegation Atiku made against Tinubu through his spokesman Phrank Shaibu, saying Tinubu has “many things to hide by evading debates, non-partisan town hall meetings and live interviews.”
He claimed Tinubu built his entire life and persona on falsehood hence he is avoiding public scrutiny.
APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) Media and Publicity Director Bayo Onanuga countered that the Atiku camp is jittery and clout chasing as it is becoming clear Tinubu will win the presidential vote in 2023.
“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 [Tinubu’s] early education and parentage, matters already thrown into the dustbin decades ago,” Onanuga said in a statement.
“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.”
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Examine your antecedents, APC tells PDP
Onanugua counselled that if the PDP examines its own record it would realise the same campaign of calumny was its weapon in the Lagos governorship vote in 2003.
He said Tinubu was investigated by the Lagos House of Assembly and the electorate punished the PDP by voting against the party at the time, according to reporting by The PUNCH.
“It is unfortunate that the [PDP] 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.
Atiku running around in circles
“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.”