The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council has fired back at the ruling All Progressives Congress, reminding the party that the convoy of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), was stoned in Kano a few weeks ago.
The PDP PCC stated this on Saturday in a reaction to the taunts directed at the PDP National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, by the APC when in a slip of the tongue in Kano, during the party’s presidential campaign rally last week, said, “PDP has brought us shame. We won’t retain them in power.”
The error of the tongue fetched Ayu a barrage of criticisms not only from the APC but also from Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State who has been consistent in his call for Ayu’s resignation.
“When you see undertakers, you will see those who came to kill this party but the party will not die. They will die first. He (Ayu) said they will not allow PDP to be in power. Is that a good chairman? Is that not anti-party? Is the chairman not doing anti-party? Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks,” Wike was quoted as saying in response to Ayu’s Kano outing.
In its reaction, the APC campaign team, in a statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, noted that the PDP chairman was only stating the obvious.
“In our view, Iyorchia Ayu did not suffer from slip of the tongue. He was only reflecting an inner guilt about the grave damage his party inflicted on our country for 16 years,” the statement read in part.
Not prepared to have the ruling party have the last say on the matter, the spokesman for the PDP PCC, Dino Melaye, in a statement on Saturday, urged the ruling party to deal with its internal issues first before attempting to cast aspersions on Ayu.
The statement read in part, “Unsettled by the peaceful, stone-free and resounding rally of the People’s Democratic Party in Kano on Thursday, the fractured, factionalised and fading All Progressives Congress, APC, had no other reaction after the impressive outing than to make a song and dance of what was by its own admission, a slip of tongue of the urbane and intellectually savvy Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.
“To demonstrate the extent that incoherence and political erosion has so much disoriented the beleaguered APC, its spinners attempted to cover the flame of its failure with a bare hand in an attempt to veil the rejection and shame that beguiled the party when its leaders were stoned in that same Kano City just a few days before. The balablue of the APC is a shock therapy for the massive reception that the PDP received in Kano.
“It is repulsive and revulsive that a party that has ruined the economy and made it so prostrate that citizens are now buying their own currency will be talking about shame. What is more shameful than having thousands of naira in your bank but you are unable to buy groundnut of N200 to mix with your garri, because you have a party that has completely run out of ideas and has consequently run our country aground?
“How can a party talk of shame where banks have now shut down and customers have relocated from the peace of their homes to the cubicle of Automated Teller Machines hoping for a wad of naira notes to slip from the currency dispenser?
“How can a party talk of shame where in the place of hope for a better academic system in the university, its presidential candidate is assuring that instead of 4 years, students will spend 8 years? What a renewal of misery and hopelessness?
“How can a party talk about shame when its own presidential candidate is accusing the President of Nigeria and leader of his party of sabotage and an unpardonable economic mismanagement that has taken the naira from exchanging at 200 naira to a dollar to 800 naira to a dollar within 7 years?
“How can a party talk of shame when in a nation of over 200 million people, the APC is parading a man who most times doesn’t know where he is and utters unintelligible bulaba and balabu all over the place?
“How can a party talk of shame where trillions of naira has been spent on fuel subsidy and Nigerians in the pauperised villages are buying a litre of petrol at 400 naira while those who ferry public money around in bullion vans pay 180 naira per litre?
“How can a party talk of shame where the rule of law and the judiciary have been so bastardized that a vibrant and erudite Chief Justice of Nigeria was manacled out of office and was replaced by a lackey who ultimately paved way for a Chief Judge that romances with a dissenting group in a political party? Is it any little wonder that the chairman of an election tribunal danced ‘buga’ in a courtroom to demonstrate his bias in a brazen conduct that awarded from the bench what a contestant could not obtain from the ballot box?”
Melaye further noted that had APC understood the meaning of shame, it would apologize to Nigerians “for arresting development, destroying the economy, bastardising the judiciary, inflicting pain of fuel, food and fund scarcity and making Nigeria a laughing stock all over the world.
“A party that has become irredeemable, consigning the hope of Nigeria in a mentally and physically sagged flag bearer can only be stopped in its tracks by a broadminded visionary leader with a sound mind in a sound body, Atiku Abubakar.
“The APC has performed in its destructive best. We have just two weeks to terminate this pain. Money will circulate again,” Melaye added.
