The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the main opposition People Democratic Party (PDP) of trying to cause confusion in the country by printing 2023 presidential campaign posters with the images of some leaders of the ruling party.
Addressing a news conference in Abuja, Thursday, the party’s spokesman Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, also expressed its readiness to meet the PDP at the Supreme Court regarding the last presidential election adding that by going to the apex court, the PDP is only attempting to repeat its failure at the tribunal.
“As a party, we want to state clearly that having won elections convincingly and having been given the mandate to run government for the next four years, our major and only focus now is governance.
“We are not engaging in any other activity about 2023 elections and wherever you see such (posters) you can be sure it is from mischief makers and of course we know it is part of the strategy of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to continue to take actions to cause distractions for the governing party from focusing on anything that is important to the people of Nigeria which is to deal with the challenges that we are all faced with; the challenges of governance, security, economy and corruption as well as other associated issues. That is what we are focused on.
“So, as a party, we understand the social contract we have signed with the people of Nigeria with the renewal of our mandate. Whatever poster you might have seen about any of our leaders anywhere in this country is irrelevant to us.
“We do not have a hand in it and it is not from those leaders. It is strictly part of the strategy of a party that is supposed to provide alternative to our governance model and since they do not have such, the only thing they can do is to continue to throw spanners into the works.
“So, we urge all our members to focus on what is important to us and so we dissociate ourselves and our leaders from such issues that have to do with elections. Elections have been done and dusted and what we are now faced with is the issue of governance”, said Issa-Onilu.
On allegations by the Coalition of United Political Parties CUPP that the ruling APC is attempting to arm-twist the judiciary into upholding the verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, the APC said CUPP, which is an arm of the PDP, is jittery because muscling the judiciary was the pastime of the PDP when it held sway for 16 years as Nigeria’s ruling party.
“Faced with the challenges that we currently have in this country, it is a complete waste of time to respond to charlatans. But if you had listened to the contents of the press conference they recently had, they said things that are very baffling and very disturbing.
“And you wish to ask yourself if these people are true Nigerians and if they mean well for the country. Because when you disparage state institutions and you talk down and try to undermine an important institution such as the judiciary that is something that we should all be worried about and that is why we are responding to this.”
