By Jude Opara & Johnson Eyiangho, Abuja

Atiku Abubakar, the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked the All Progressives Congress (APC) flag-bearer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, not to contemplate the idea of postponing the Saturday Presidential election as Nigerians are ready for the exercise.

Atiku boasted that he will defeat Tinubu any time, any day the election is held.

The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization asserted in a statement yesterday by its Spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, that  Nigerians are ready to go to the polls on Saturday to vote in Atiku, as the next President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Ologbondiyan said Nigerians had rejected the pressure by the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign for the postponement of the election.

He said the demand for postponement by the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign was a ploy to further create confusion and derail the electoral process as it is clear that defeat awaits Tinubu at the polls.

“The Atiku Campaign reminds the Tinubu Campaign of how its chief campaigner, a hate-inclined governor of a prominent North West State was said to have been humiliated at the last Council of State meeting where he reportedly went to push a failed memo for the postponement of the election for some few weeks.

“Our campaign has also been reliably informed that this APC governor is demanding the postponement because the APC Candidate, Tinubu, cannot by any measure win election, given his overwhelming rejection by Nigerians.

“It is pathetic that after its defeat at the Council of State meeting, the Tinubu Campaign is still perching around media platforms and seeking for the postponement of the elections.

“’It is imperative to note that having been stunned by the rejection at the meeting, the Tinubu Campaign had resorted to inciting violence, making wild, unfounded and reckless accusations, posting incendiary remarks, attacking prominent Nigerians, blackmailing and seeking to compromise our democracy institutions in order to heat up the polity and make it appear unconducive for elections to hold on February 25, 2023,” Ologbondiyan said.

He stated that the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign must accept the reality that the train had “already left the station and Nigerians have since made up their minds to elect Atiku Abubakar as next President”.

According to him, the firm decision by Nigerians to elect Atiku on February 25 cannot be swayed by the shenanigans of the APC and Tinubu Campaign.

He urged Nigerians to remain at alert and united as they get ready to come out en-masse and vote for the PDP at the Saturday, February 25, 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections.

‘You’re Opportunistic, Inconsistent, Tinubu Tells Atiku’

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate in the 2023 general election, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has taken a swipe at the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, describing him as inconsistent and opportunistic.

In a statement in Abuja on Monday, Bayo Onanuga, the Director, Media & Publicity

APC Presidential Campaign Council said the statement earlier credited to one of Atiku’s media sides, Frank Shuaibu accusing the APC governors of over heating the polity.

 “We have observed the treacherous and shifting positions of Peoples Democratic Party’s Director, Media & Publicity APC Presidential Campaign Council Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar since the current currency crisis caused by the Central Bank started.

“In line with  his well-documented inconsistencies and unreliability, Atiku has advanced several contradictory positions,  in the fruitless hope of gaining political advantage from the crisis.

“We note that Alhaji Atiku and his hopeless party first hailed the CBN policy to high heavens when they initially thought it was a policy deliberately designed to stop Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu from becoming the next elected president of Nigeria.

“Atiku called on President Muhammadu Buhari and CBN Governor to ensure strict implementation of the policy and the deadline of 31 January because in his and party’s short-sightedness and gross miscalculation, Tinubu was the prime target.

“Atiku’s position exploded on his face  when the unintended consequences of the CBN policy manifested in its full ramifications and crippled the entire populace”.

Onanuga also mocked the former Vice President after President Muhammadu Buhari listened to popular opinion extending the deadline for the swapping of the old Naira notes.

 “The CBN and the FG to which Atiku and his party have suddenly become  the cheer leaders listened to all the voices of reason and  shifted the deadline for the currency swap  till 10 February.

“On 1 February, Atiku took another public position, asking the CBN not to shift the deadline again.

“There should be no further postponement of the new Naira regime after the expiration of the February 10 deadline. The vote riggers are seeking to push the CBN to extend till after the election when they would have achieved their evil plots. The CBN and the Presidency should be steadfast. The merits of the new Naira policy far outweigh the little inconvenience we are experiencing”’.

According to him, all Nigerians can now attest, the 10 February deadline also proved grossly  inadequate, with governors of the APC challenging it in the Supreme Court and got an interim order asking the CBN to allow the old N200, N500 and N1,000 notes to remain legal tender with the new notes.

 “Amid the widespread misery and the currency scarcity that the Naira swap policy created for Nigerians, Atiku’s position proved once again an egregious miscalculation and clearly anti-people.

“But with just five days away from the presidential election, Atiku wants to cash in on the mood of the country with his latest faux empathy. He is now asking CBN to allow Nigerians to deposit their N500 and N1000 old notes in commercial banks, after thousands of desperate Nigerians jammed the CBN offices in Lagos and other places,  hoping to deposit their old  currency and get the new notes.

“It is generally a bad time for poor and hapless Nigerians as currency scarcity has become the norm.  The chameleonic politician forgot that he once described the suffering our people are going through some ‘little inconvenience.

“We recognize Atiku’s desperation to be President and like chameleon, this unprincipled and unstable politician will change positions on any issue as long as he thinks it will help his perennial ambition.

“Nigerians should run away from Atiku. A man like the PDP candidate with no strong conviction and strength of character cannot offer the kind of leadership our country needs”.

The statement added that Nigeria needs a consistent and steady leader who will stand firm and upright when it is convenient and when it is not convenient; describing Asiwaju Tinubu as that kind of leader who has demonstrated that by his principled stand on the current crisis.

PDP Tasks Security Agencies on Safety of INEC Offices, Facilities

Ahead of Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called on security agencies to beef up security in and around the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) offices and facilities nationwide from any attack.

The PDP said that the call was predicated on apprehensions in the public space of alleged plots by certain APC interests to launch a coordinated attack on INEC offices and facilities in various parts of the country.

National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Hon. Debo Ologunagba, said in a statement on Monday that the objective of the intended attack was to destroy the Commission’s Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines so as to cripple its ability to conduct the elections.

Ologunagba recalled that the party had alerted of series of designs by some frustrated and violence-inclined APC governors and the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign to cause widespread crisis, truncate the elections, subvert democracy and impose an undemocratic situation on the country.

Credible information available to our party, according to the PDP’s scribe, indicates that the said APC interests which are bent at scuttling the elections to avoid a humiliating defeat are allegedly mobilizing thugs to launch fresh attacks on INEC offices and its facilities where BVAS machines “Some prominent APC leaders including certain APC governors, having failed in their designs to have the elections postponed and having also been resisted in their plot to use their orchestrated cash scarcity to destabilize the nation, are now allegedly plotting to cripple INEC’s ability to conduct the elections by destroying the BVAS machines.

“These APC leaders and their apologists have evidently revealed themselves as clear and present threat not only to the electoral process but also to our corporate existence as a nation and must be resisted by all.

“The PDP therefore charges the security agencies to take all necessary steps to provide adequate protection for INEC facilities, equipment and personnel before, during and after the elections,”’ he said.

The PDP also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to put all measures in place for free, fair, transparent and credible elections in keeping with his assurances to Nigerians and the international community.

The party urged Nigerians to remain vigilant in resisting the APC and the Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign in their vicious plot to cause crisis, derail democracy and force an unconstitutional situation of Interim National Government on the nation.

Ologunagba asked the APC and the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign to accept the fact that Nigerians will never be deterred from their resolve to vote in the Presidential Candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, to rebuild the country from their disastrous misrule.