The ruling All Progressives Congress APC has declared that the country’s main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party PDP will lose the 2019 general elections on two grounds – the character of its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar and the pedigree of the PDP as a former ruling party.
Speaking in an interview with journalists Sunday in Abuja, National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu said the task of the APC has been made easier by the failures of the PDP for the 16 years they were in power. According to him, it is an affront for the People Democratic Party PDP to embark on campaign at zonal rallies, instead of apologising for the damage allegedly done to the nation for 16 years. APC, however, stated that major two issues that will form it campaign include; the personality of the presidential candidate of the PDP and the numerous achievements of the current administration in the last few years.
When asked on reason why his party is yet to constitute its National Campaign Council, Issa-Onilu said: “Well, we don’t have any problem at all and we are very okay. Because campaign, as you may know, is just one aspect of it. There are many other platforms to engage with the people. Rally, is just one, and it is actually the impact of rallies that matter… not that we are not going to go round the country because what we expect the PDP to do in this rally is to go to the zones and apologize profusely, demonstrate remorsefulness which they have failed to do. And they keep going to those zones for rally to insult people.
“When we go out for campaign, we will be doing two things because this campaign for APC is about two issues. Character of persons who have come forward to say they want to rule us.
We are going to bring character into focus. And for the candidates of the PDP we won’t go too far stressing to review who you are but the person you work with under whom you work.” He said former President Olusegun Obasanjo is the best person to review the character of former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, “something he copiously did in his book already and we will bring that into focus.
“He (Obasanjo) told us he found him to be very unreliable person, somebody that is not trustworthy, that he found him to be somebody who compromises the system for personal gain.
And we have evidence to that and we must bring that to focus. And we must continue to thank President Obasanjo for being so patriotic to have alerted the country to the danger inherent in bringing somebody like former Vice President Atiku close to Nigeria’s assets and resources.
“The second leg of our campaign, will be stewardship. We have been in government for three and half years. We are going to give stewardship. For every kilometre of road that we have done is a reminder to the systemic years of waste under the previous governments.
For every rail track that we have laid is a reminder to the systemic wastefulness of waste for the continuous increase in enrolment of students across the nation because of the now very inviting school environment of school feeding. It is a reminder to the 13.5 million pupils who were out of school under PDP.
“So, the campaign will be able stewardship and what we have use the 3 and half years to do. All the abandoned projects that we have fixed. The issue of diversification that for four decades and the 16 years of PDP became mere mantra and a reality.
“Check our GDP, it is no longer a mono product economy. It is now an economy that you have contribution from Agriculture and from solid minerals, making solid impact in our GDP. That is diversification. And all this by the time we bring them to bear and Nigerians are going to move by this December for Christmas and the new year.
We are also alerting them that the road that were impassable they will see progress that has been made all over the country. And Christmas after Christmas they will continue to see improvement.”
