Stop whipping up hatred against Buhari – APC warns PDP

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the ruling
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of breaching the peace
accord it entered into last week with its violent attack on
APC’s flagbearer, Gen Muhammadu Buhari.
A statement issued by APC’s Director of Strategic
Communications, Mr. Dele Alake, the party stated that PDP’s
desperate attempt to demonize Buhari contradicts the peace
accord entered into by the political parties.
“It is shocking that rather than explain itself over the multiple
crises it has engendered or has failed to respond to; or offer
panaceas to these challenging troubles, the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) candidates and spokesmen have
stuck to the tactics of demonizing the All Progressives
Congress (APC) candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, using all
sorts of red herrings, abuses, foul temper to whip up hatred
against his person,” the statement said.
Alake pointed to the attempt by the PDP’s spokesmen to
paint Buhari black with the allegation of corruption and
favouritism during Buhari’s days as the chairman of the
defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) and the orchestrated
attempt to link him with the activities of Boko Haram.
“But a few days ago, former President Olusegun Obasanjo,
who was supposed to have commissioned the investigation
into the PTF activities, disclosed that he was in possession of
the report and nothing untoward was established against the
APC candidate.
“To the astonishment of all right thinking persons, the PDP
has chosen not to believe in the authority of President
Obasanjo who ordered the investigation and has final say on
it, but prefers to allege that the man who has the fact is
dead! Can there be a worse tragicomedy than this? Who really
is fooling who?
“It is true Gen. Buhari ruled as a military Head of State. But it
must also be acknowledged that General Olusegun Obasanjo
also once ruled as a military Head of State. Yet, that did not
prevent the PDP from nominating and presenting him as its
presidential candidate in 1999 and 2003 general elections.
“Gen. Buhari was himself a victim of Boko Haram attack, and
has also lost some relatives to the sect’s violent activities. He
has denounced the sect, and has signified his preparedness to
take on the militants on a much firmer and intelligent basis
than President Jonathan has done in four years,” the
statement read in parts.
APC urged PDP and its hatchet men to focus on the main
issues and proffer solution to the challenges facing the
country and stop the aggressive attack on the person of
Buhari.
“It is clear that President Jonathan’s aides, ministers and
hatchet writers base nearly all their accusations against Gen.
Buhari on his period as military head of state. They have
nothing on him since then, except fishing for other
commentators’ views on the retired General; views that were
either politically inspired or else taken out of context. The PDP
refuses to acknowledge that the times have changed and that
the dynamics of Nigerian politics and the grave challenges of
the moment have made the APC candidate’s style, views and
discipline precisely the pressing need of the moment.
“The fact is that the PDP has consistently avoided the main
issues of this campaign. Apparently, it has no answers to
them. The party prefers to focus on personal attacks, dreg up
unsubstantiated records of the General during his military rule,
make wild imputations of his motives, and label him
atrociously in order to hang him. Nigerians, happily, have
recognized that the country has little time left to tackle the
grave economic collapse facing it, and the even more critical
security challenges threatening the entire country. The country
is rallying to the side of the APC, to the side of Gen Buhari,
and to the side of posterity. This is an idea whose time has
come, which no one can stop, not even with all the abuses
possible and all the tendentiousness the PDP can muster,” the
statement noted.