The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has told the ruling All Progressives Congress that its judgment year is the 2023 year of elections.
Atiku said the ruling APC had lost the moral decency to empathise with victims of terrorist invasion in Owo, Ondo State when the whole country was in a sober mood and could not cancel a dinner with its presidential aspirants on the day of the attack, describing the act as disconcerting.
A statement by a media aide to the PDP presidential candidate, Paul Ibe, gave the indication on Monday.
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Atiku said it was unnecessary to say that the so-called primary election was occurring in the background of the reported claim of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), to have the liberty to handpick his successor.
“It is important to stress that the 2023 general election, more than anything else, is a referendum about the scorecard of the APC and Nigerians should not reward their failure with even a day more on the saddle.”
“With the blood of innocent worshippers flowing on the street of the Sunshine State, leaders of the APC are gathered in Abuja, treating themselves to sumptuous dinner in a manner that suggests a lack of empathy for the mood of the nation,” he said.
“However, if the mystery that the APC calls a presidential convention primary is barely to handpick an anointed candidate, it is vital to ask the party leadership why they selected to hold the so-called convention for a working day, thereby disrupting economic activities around the FCT.
“Even as delegates in the so-called election entered the Federal Capital Territory, they must have been greeted with long queues of vehicles waiting to buy automobile fuel and darkness that continues to grim the capital city on account of seizures in electricity supply.
The former Vice President said the situation is creating a mindset in the delegates that the party is just been subjected to a referendum on its scorecard in the past seven years.
He said residents of the FCT who had been subjected to everyday stress as a result of bad administration by the ruling party, the choice of crucial working days – Monday and Tuesday – as days for the primary of the APC is a cold and selfish decision.
It needs no mention that whoever is ‘handpicked’ as the APC presidential candidate in such a despotic process cannot be any different from the authoritarian fervour of the APC’s establishment.
“Such a candidate, therefore, cannot represent the future of hope and brighter aspirations that Nigerians look forward to after the termination of the current state of anomie that the ruling party is known for,” Atiku added.
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