By G9ija
THE Presidential Campaign teams of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP; and Labour Party, LP, yesterday, lashed out at the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, over alleged lack of capacity to lead the country.
The duo spoke in response to Tinubu’s attack on them during APC presidential rallies and activities in Delta and Lagos last weekend.
In Gbaramatu, Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State, Tinubu had pleaded with HRM Oboro Gbaraun II, the Pere of the Gbaramatu Kingdom, during a visit, to order the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate to stop running for the presidency.
Tinubu during the visit to the revered monarch at his palace in Oporozo, noted that there were few presidential candidates contesting elections.
“One says he is Atiku. How many times has he been running? He’s always on the run. He is never tired of running. Tell him to go and sit down… The other one (Peter Obi of the Labour Party) lies with statistics and arithmetic.
”No Indian can solve it. To mention his name is a disgrace to me. He gives wrong statistics and wrong arithmetic about the economy,” Tinubu had said.
Not done, Tinubu, at a rally at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Lagos on Saturday, urged Nigerians to retire Atiku permanently in 2023 because he and the PDP had nothing to offer the citizenry, following their 16 years in power.
Tinubu desperate to divert attention from APC’s 7 disastrous years —ATIKU CAMPAIGN
However, the Atiku-Okowa Presidential Campaign yesterday urged Nigerians to see through the desperate attempt by Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu to divert attention from his party’s seven disastrous years at the helm of affairs.
Spokesperson of the campaign, Mr. Kola Ologbodiyan, said this in a telephone chat with Vanguard, in Abuja, yesterday, that Tinubu, who was obviously embarrassed by the disastrous outing of the Muhammadu Buhari-led APC administration over the past seven years, was looking for ways to divert the attention of Nigerians by taking a dig at the PDP and Atiku.
Also, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, the special assistant on Public Communications to the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, described Tinubu as a clown fit for the theatre, not Nigeria’s presidency.
Ologbondiyan said: “It is unfortunate that a candidate that cannot offer, let alone activate alternative programmes is seeking to counsel Nigerians on how to cast their votes.
“Is it not laughable that a candidate, who cannot campaign on a single achievement of his party’s misadventure in governance, is seeking to blackmail Nigerians?
“It is instructive for Tinubu to know that Nigerians are desirous of returning to those 16 years with improvements from our presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, as life was far better to the misrule which Asiwaju and his co-travellers imposed on Nigerians just because of his life ambition.
The PDP campaign spokesman noted that Nigerians, who were today suffering from the misrule of the APC, were praying for February 2023 to come quickly for them to vote the APC out and return the PDP to power in order to secure the future of generations yet unborn.
Tinubu is a clown, fit only for the theatre—ATIKU’s AIDE
Also speaking, Mr. Phrank Shaibu, said: ”Tinubu should be contesting to be the Grand Comedian of the Federal Republic and not Grand Commander of the Federal Republic going by his utterances.
”It is public knowledge that every time Tinubu comes out in public to make a statement or two, he has always goofed.
“If he is not saying that voter’s card has expiration date; he is saying young Nigerians are tweeting on WhatsApp or that 50 million youths should be recruited into the Nigerian Army and be fed with cassava in the morning, and Agbado in the night.
“How can you say Nigerians are tweeting on WhatsApp? Is that the kind of person we want to hand 21st Century Nigeria over to?
“In his latest gaffe at the Lagos rally, he asked Nigerians to get their APV in order to vote for APC when even primary school children know that PVC is the only item that admits a voter into a polling unit.
“Without mincing words, Tinubu’s gaffes already supply comedians, skit makers, meme-makers, and TikTokers with content.
“He is a self-writing joke and will make Nigeria a bye-word for scorn among the comity of nations, which is why he shouldn’t get close to power,”Shaibu further said.
He explained that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s claim at the Lagos rally that Tinubu would lift Nigerians out of hardship and hunger was an indictment of the APC, an admission that, indeed, over 133 million Nigerians now live in abject poverty as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.
“Now they are selling a message of a renewed hope. It is common knowledge that darkness cannot cure darkness and sickness cannot cure sickness. How can the APC be promising to fix problems exacerbated by the same APC? This is balderdash,” he said.
Tinubu lacks capacity to grasp Obi’s statistics – OBI-DATTI CAMPAIGN
On its part, the media team of the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, said the All Progressives Congress, APC, presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, dreads facts and figures used by opponents in place of mere rhetoric.
The Obi-Datti Media Office said in a statement yesterday noted that Tinubu had said at a rally of rented crowds in Gbaramatu, Delta State, that Peter Obi of the Labour Party lied with figures, stressing that “a speech-challenged contestant, who cannot pronounce or spell ‘m.u.l.t.i.p.l.i.c.a.t.i.o.n’ and wants to argue about numbers, arithmetic, and statistics says a lot about how low we have climbed in this country.”
The campaign team further stated the LP candidate was brimming with practicable ideas and was demystifying electioneering rhetoric by employing simple facts and figures in his campaigns.
“Providing the numbers shows Peter Obi’s preparedness for the high office of the president if and when hired by Nigerian voters come 2023,” the media office said.
The Obi-Datti Media Office said it was aware of the inability of some candidates in the presidential race to cope with Peter Obi’s speed and deep knowledge of issues; saying, “this has resulted in a grand design to distract his focus from the issue-driven campaigns, which are resonating very well with Nigerians, who are ready and committed to taking back their country from forces that have held it down over the years.”
On the use of figures to convey facts, the LP statement added that it was risky to dine with the devil without the proverbial long spoon or to run with the robber and confuse passers-by about the identity of the real thief.
“Our candidate has said repeatedly that his assertions were verifiable and dared anybody with contrary facts and figures to come up.
”Analysts, media houses, and opponents have formed fact-checking units in their organisations ostensibly to contradict Peter Obi’s facts and figures, but, they are yet to succeed,” the media team said.
It cited a recent Arise TV town hall meeting in Abuja where a team of fact-checkers was raised to hook Obi, but noted that they ended up apologising to him.
“The acceptable mantra is always if you can’t beat them, join them, but in Nigerian politics the reverse is the case: if you can’t beat them pull them down. That is what Obi’s opponents, who cannot cope with his deep know-how about the economy are doing.
“We find it extremely laughable and shameful that a candidate who is aspiring to lead his country has not been able to present any identifiable record of his origin, age, and educational background and he is challenging the man who is indisputably equipped with the way to go about salvaging our dear country.
“The fact that the APC man has questionable bio-data has left the electorate guessing his real age and health status,” the media office noted.
