TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been “uneasy and apprehensive” since former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar emerged its presidential candidate.

Kola Ologbondiyan, national publicity secretary of the PDP, said this in reaction to the allegation of Festus Keyamo, spokesman of the reelection campaign of President Muhammadu Buhari, that Abubakar induced the delegates financially to emerge winner.

But Ologbondiyan said the “spurious allegations” show that the APC and Buhari are afraid of the Abubakar’s candidacy.

“The claims, by APC, of vote-buying at PDP national convention, is, therefore, not only false but completely unfounded and symptomatic of a party that has totally lost bearing and now engaged in rumour mongering,” the statement read.

“However, for us as a party, such allegation from the APC is not unexpected given that it had tried everything possible to scuttle our national convention and Presidential primary but woefully failed, hence the desperation to engage in attempt to discredit the process that has been acclaimed as the beat in our political history.

“Unlike the APC that has an unpopular Presidential candidate, who has failed in governance, foisted on it without an election, the whole world watched with excitement as 12 aspirants contested the PDP Presidential primary, where delegates drawn from respected Nigerians across the country, freely voted for a candidate of their choice.

“To the amusement of Nigerians, the APC conducted a non-contested convention in which it declared President Buhari as ‘winner’ with over 14 million fictitious votes. In their desperation, they forgot that ‘winning’ as a word connotes contest.”

The PDP warned the ruling APC to steer clear of its party, saying Nigerians are only interested in the candidate that can bring the nation out of the “ugly situation Buhari has sunk us”.

“While we note that the APC is suffering from a pre-defeat trauma, we caution this fading party and its presidential candidate, who had failed our nation, to steer clear of our party and get ready for issue-based campaign ahead of the 2019 elections.

“It is instructive to state that their attempt at smear campaign against our candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, will fail as Nigerians are interested only in the candidate that can make a turn around of the ugly situation Buhari Presidency has sunk us.”