Buhari takes on Atiku, Tambuwal, Saraki over PDP Presidential ticket bids

President Muhammadu Buhari has formally congratulated the newly elected National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Abdulahi Adamu and other members of the party’s National Working Committee, faulting the possibility of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) trusting those who previously left the party with its 2023 presidential ticket. 

A statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media & Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, pointed out that most important leaders of the PDP previously left the party and later returned, noting that the issue ought to attract the criticism of the media.

It said it was unbelievable that one of such politicians may now emerge as the presidential candidate of the main opposition party.

Three prominent leaders of the PDP who have already collected their expression of interest and nomination forms to contest for its presidential tickets including former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar; former Senate President, Bukola Saraki and Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, had left the PDP to join the APC but later returned to the opposition fold.

The presidency statement read: “Given that most important leaders of the opposition PDP first left the party before they returned to it, we might expect the media to ensure criticism of them is damning and absolute.

“It is incredulous that anyone would consider them trustworthy or acceptable candidates for any public office.” 

The statement quoted President Buhari as saying that the unity of APC members put on display at the convention places the party on a firmer footing for victory in next year, the 2023 general election.

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It said the president, who returned to the convention ground at the Eagle Square, Sunday morning, along with the vice-president, Professor Yemi Osinbajo and the president of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, to witness and celebrate the inauguration of the elected party executives, remarked that the smooth conduct of the election raises the prospect of a mouth-watering APC victory next year.

“The APC convention hosted this weekend sets the scene for an APC victory in the presidential and general elections next year. It is a victory over naysayers who believed the party was divided but are now disappointed,” said the president.

The statement added: “We believe that it is equally a victory for the president who has ensured unity across all party positions, and it is a victory for the voters of Nigeria who can now be assured of a smooth succession to new leadership in 2023. 

“What the convention made clear was how the media has been peddling fake news of division, when the hard reality of unity, cohesion, and indeed personal warmth between members of the party’s leaders – incoming and outgoing – was evident for all to see. 

“Of course, the blame for this mindset ought rightly to go to the opposition who in all these years had done the work to only divide the country, leading to all manner of separatist agitations. But this is not the wish, nor is it in the character of the citizens, as was clear for everyone to see at the Eagle Square.” 

The statement similarly faulted the claims that some members of the new leadership of the APC were sourced from the PDP, noting that they have repented and become less of sinners.

It further stated: “When their fake news of disunity was undone by the facts, some in the opposition could not help themselves but take to the newspapers and the airwaves to find another way to shore up their reputations. That some of the APC’s new leadership were once in the opposition was the new line to take to the media, somehow suggesting that those who have left one party should not hold positions in another. Yet, do the Scriptures not teach us of the virtue of sinners who repent and change their ways? 

“What the Scriptures say less is of sinners who repent, change their tune, and then choose to re-sin in full public view by returning to their former ways.” 

It observed that with the conclusion of the national convention, “the stage is now set for the APC primary elections later this year when the party’s new standard-bearers will emerge. No doubt some will attempt to argue the impossible – that an APC primary election is a source of division while an opposition primary election is a source of consensus. 

“But the good voters of Nigeria can see through such acrobatics and know the facts that, when the contests for 2023 come, APC offers a track record of success and leadership, while the opposition has only decades of failure and complicity in response.”

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