TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party has claimed that two governors of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some members of the national assembly will soon defect to the PDP.

It also slammed APC for issuing statements alleging that former governor of Borno state, Ali Modu Sheriff, was on President Goodluck Jonathan’s entourage to Chad.

The PDP national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, described as “repulsive and utterly despicable”, APC’s critical positions on issues.

“Now that it has become incontrovertible that Senator Sheriff was not on the entourage of the president, we ask, was the APC release an issue of dishing out statements without cross-checking the facts or that of a desperate opposition party adopting the combination of lies, deceit and inciting of people as operational creed to hide its sinister agenda?” it queried.

Stating that the APC had “displayed its lack of integrity and penchant for falsehood for which it has become repugnant to Nigerians”, PDP said it was appalling that the opposition party had remained “a camp of dishonest lot whose statements could not be trusted”.

“We invite Nigerians to note that APC’s statements are always laced with lies, unfounded allegations and fabrications. Recently, the APC issued a statement on the so-called Australian hostage negotiator, Stephen Davis, only to be confronted with massive contradictions of facts with attendant controversy,” the party noted.

“We recall the shameful attempt to deceive Nigerians by accusing the PDP-led government of moving operatives of the department of state service to terrorize the people of Osun state when in actual fact, the APC governor of Osun state also formally requested for their deployment ahead of the August 9 governorship election.

“Also, the APC in June issued a statement wherein it alleged that a plane carrying Kano state governor Rabiu Kwankwaso to attend its rally in Ekiti was denied landing permission in Akure, only for Kwankwaso’s director of press affairs to announce that the governor was at another event in Kano and had no plans to travel to Ekiti state.

“This is a party that earlier this year raised an alarm that federal lawmakers were being induced with millions of dollars to defect to the PDP, only for Nigerians to find out that it was false; a party that threw all sense of honor to the wind to lie over an issue as ordinary as the age of its 52 years old youth leader.”

PDP drew the attention of Nigerians to APC’s personal attacks on those who left its fold, and also recalled the personal attacks on Chief Tom Ikimi; former Kano governor, Ibrahim Shekarau; his Sokoto state counterpart, Attahiru Bafarawa; former aviation minister, Femi Fani-Kayode; and several others when they left the opposition party, saying the practice clearly showed the party as an “undemocratic and intolerant” party desperate for survival.

PDP said many members of the APC “including two state governors and members of the national assembly” were set to decamp to its fold owing to the bad image and anti-democratic stance of the opposition party.

The party upbraided the leaders of APC for “working against the national interest and making themselves a laughing stock in the eyes of the international community by going to the British House of Commons and various international events to concoct stories in a bid to damage the image of their own nation”, adding that such only portrayed them as unpatriotic and irresponsible.

“We have before us individuals who most likely are used to concocting damaging stories even against their spouses and friends,” it said.

“This despicable trait must be dropped and should not transcend to fabricating destructive lies capable of tarnishing the image of our own dear nation.”