Only 38 days remain until the candidates of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, respectively, are slated to face off in the nation’s capital.
The attacks intensified throughout the course of the week, with each party demanding the arrest and removal of the other over claims of corruption, in violation of the peace agreement each presidential candidate had signed before the start of their respective campaigns.
Remember how the national chairman of each party and the presidential candidates were forced to sign a peace treaty at the start of the 2023 election season, pledging to run peaceful campaigns? The National Peace Committee in Abuja organised the signing.
According to Obasanjonews24, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, were among the candidates who signed the agreement.
However, the candidate for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, was not present; Kashim Shettima filled in for him.
Last week, Tinubu’s team fired the opening volley when he urged Nigerians to care more about Atiku’s credibility and health than their own, stressing that Atiku must be truthful about his health and allegations of corruption.
Atiku should have dropped out of the campaign since he was certain to lose again, according to Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity for the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, PCC.
It is time for PDP presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, 76, to address two matters that are obstructing his campaign: his health and his scandalous admission that he conspired with his former boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, to steal from the Nigerian treasury by using special purpose vehicles after he was elected Vice President in 1999.
According to reliable sources, Atiku did actually become ill while playing football. He was in the UK for medical treatment, but his handlers tried to hide the fact that he had been invited by Whitehall officials, mimicking Asiwaju Tinubu’s earlier trip there on behalf of the APC.
In response to Tinubu’s accusations and criticism, the Atiku-led Okowa Campaign Organization claimed that Tinubu lacked the moral authority to disparage Atiku’s pristine reputation and integrity.
The campaign’s spokesman, Kola Ologbodiyan, claimed in a statement that his principle, Atiku, had abstained from bringing up Tinubu’s terrible health problems prior to the disgraceful public dance of the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign.
“The Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organization mocks Asiwaju Tinubu over his failed attempt to blame Atiku Abubakar, the healthy and active presidential candidate of the PDP, for the APC’s weak, goofy, and drug-devastated presidential candidate.
“Tinubu’s failed attempt to impugn the impeccable character and integrity of the incoming people’s president, Atiku, is also called ludicrous,” Ologbodiyan said.Tinubu is a well-known property stripper from Lagos who has come to be known as corruption personified and the living embodiment of the artful dodger.
Festus Keyamo, the APC Presidential Campaign Council’s (PCC) spokesman and current Minister of State for Labor, Productivity, and Employment, continued his rhetorical barrage this week by returning fireworks from Tinubu’s camp.
Keyamo claimed that Tinubu’s campaign council had submitted a petition to the anti-financial crime organisations, including the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission (ICPC), the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), calling for the detention and prosecution of PDP candidate Atiku.
He also said he had given the anti-graft organisations a 72-hour deadline to “arrest/invite, question, and punish Atiku, failing which he indicated he would go to the courts to cause the organisations to act.”
Speaking via the PCC at its Abuja headquarters with the full support of his media directorate, Tinubu’s camp also questioned the sources of wealth for both Atiku and Obasanjo, his former principal.
The PCC also played a two-minute audio recording of what was allegedly a conversation between Atiku and a man named Achimugu about possible corruption.
Atiku was accused of violating the Code of Conduct Act, criminal breach of trust, conspiracy, and money laundering by the Campaign Council.
However, the PDP rejected Tinubu’s calls and accusations against its presidential candidate while refuting the claims. It labelled them as made-up accusations and efforts to draw attention away from the problems afflicting Nigerians.
According to the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, “It is indeed ironic that an embattled Tinubu, who is beleaguered by untold cases of fraudulent activities, including perjury, forgery, treasury looting, corruption, and narcotics-related convictions, can attempt to impugn the unimpeachable integrity of the PDP Presidential Candidate.”
Kola Ologbondiyan, the campaign spokesman for Atiku and Okowa, sought Tinubu’s immediate arrest and questioning in a statement released in Abuja on Monday. Tinubu is accused of organising a uniformed gang of thugs known as the “Jagaban Army” with the express intent of carrying out an electoral theft.
“The Jagaban Army is a direct affront to the Nigerian Armed Forces and other security agencies, as well as an assault on the sovereignty of our country.” It appears to be a plot to disrupt the 2023 general elections and raid polling stations in order to secure votes for APC presidential candidate Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“The idea of the Jagaban Army is a scheme to get hoodlums, thugs, and criminals together under the guise of the APC and turn them into an official militia that will be used to cause mayhem on the day of the election,” stated Ologbondiyan.
Atiku and Tinubu were criticised by the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on Tuesday for running smear campaigns against one another.
In a statement, Emmanuel Onwubiko, the national coordinator of HURIWA, claimed that both candidates are two sides of the same coin because they both assert that their rival has been discovered to have supposedly committed the same crime of money laundering.
“The APC and PDP situation is absolutely absurd.” It’s because Atiku and Tinubu are both accusing one another of the identical crimes that they both supposedly committed.
Festus Keyamo, a serving minister and campaign spokesman for Tinubu, “confirmed” that the APC presidential candidate “mistakenly” stayed in the same residence as drug lords and forfeited $460,000 in one of the 10 US banks linked to him.
The Datti Baba-Ahmed Campaign Organization’s Yunusa Tanko, a spokesman for Peter Obi, claimed that the two candidates would not be morally qualified to run for office in a sane society in response to the verbal conflict between them.
According to Tanko, Nigeria is the only country where someone can be publicly accused of something serious and still be eager to run for office.
He added that Nigerians should support Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, in order to remove those responsible for the nation’s ongoing poverty.
“I watched a few of these interviews, and normally that upsets my system. These two individuals would not have the moral authority to run for office in Nigeria in a normal, rational society.
Only in Nigeria will you find such a devastating claim supported by evidence in the public eye, yet shamelessly, individuals are still eager to run for office, and others are even considering the possibility of casting a vote for such a candidate. It is very humiliating and insulting.
“I will only ask Nigerians to consider Peter Obi’s credibility, character, consistency, and compassion.” I also ask them to use their voting rights to perform what we call a simultaneous equation by voting out the people who have kept us in a state of perpetual poverty and electing Peter Obi in their place.
“That is the only message I can convey to Nigerians because I lack the authority and my one vote won’t be able to summon Peter Obi.” To at least act as a deterrent to those who believe they can hold Nigerians captive due to their own personal greed, interest, and corrupt tendencies in order to continue perpetuating themselves into power, Tanko said, “I can only use my mouth to advocate for Nigerians to ensure that they vote for Peter Obi.
