PDP, Atiku cannot rewrite ugly past, says Onanuga
The Director, Media and Publicity, All Progressive Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, has said that the leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, having consistently shown lack of capacity for introspection, have been going round the country slandering the APC-led government of President Muhammadu Buhari, believing that Nigerians have forgotten their atrocious era.
In a statement, yesterday, Onanuga stated that PDP presidential candidate that once contemplated changing its brand name because of its atrocious record has been emboldened by the assumed forgetfulness as a nation, mounting podiums and trying to deodorise and beautify the party’s ugly era..
“Alhaji Atiku blamed the APC for the emergence of Boko Haram, forgetting that the insurgents emerged in 2009 under his party’s watch. He blamed Buhari over the economic challenges, forgetting that he opportunistically joined the coalition that toppled the clueless PDP government of President Jonathan, when the economy was nose-diving.
“Atiku has now been joined by Abubakar Saraki, the failed Senate President and saboteur-in-chief of the Buhari agenda, who in his latest comment in Ilorin, urged Nigerians to ‘go back to the PDP at both the state and the national levels’. In the famous words of Dino Melaye, we say ‘PDP: God forbid’.”
Onanuga stated that in a sane society, PDP should not be canvassing for votes to be returned to office, when during its 16 years in power, it laid the foundation for the challenges the people face today.
“Let us not forget what the party of looters did to our treasury, depleting foreign reserves to $28 billion by May 2015, even though a record N75 trillion flowed into the treasury from oil sales alone, with almost nothing to show.
“Let us not forget that the party of looters nurtured the conditions that led to the emergence of Boko Haram on our soil and it was so clueless about how to deal with the menace as our cities and people were bombed and maimed by Boko Haram terrorists.
“Let us not forget that for six years, the PDP allowed the insurgents to declare a Caliphate on our soil, controlling 17 local governments in Borno State and four in Adamawa, making Atiku unable to go to Jada, his hometown.
“Let us not forget that the PDP left our infrastructure decrepit, highways impassable after allotted money to contractors had been shared by party stalwarts. Let us not forget that this party now posing as recovery agents had already grounded our country and made our economy comatose before Buhari took over on May 29, 2015.
“Let us not forget that the two poorest states in our country, Sokoto and Bayelsa are states being governed by the PDP in the last 8 years. In the past seven and a half years, the Buhari government has been trying to clear the mess left by the PDP predecessors. Despite the challenges faced on the economic front, among which is dwindling revenue exacerbated by oil theft, the government has been able to showcase many game changing projects.
“One of them which temporarily opened on December 15, is the Second Niger Bridge. The PDP promised the South East states and Ifeanyi Okowa’s Delta State that it would do the bridge. For 16 years, the party made one empty promise after another. Muhammadu Buhari in 2018 decided to take on the project. He awarded it all over again and in record time, the 1.6 kilometres long bridge is ready.
And it comes with other ancillary infrastructure including a 10.3 km highway, a bypass to Owerri and a toll station at Obosi.”
He said that while APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, will build on Buhari’s legacy, improve the economy and the security situation, Nigerians have rejected the PDP and will not buy its lies again.