Only 38 days remain till the All Progressives Congress, APC, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidates, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, respectively, are slated to face off in the nation’s capital.
The assaults intensified throughout the course of the week, with each party demanding the arrest and removal of the other over claims of corruption, in violation of the peace agreement each presidential candidate had signed before to the start of their separate campaigns.
Remember how the national chairman of each party and the presidential candidates were forced to sign a peace treaty at the start of the 2023 election season, pledging to run peaceful campaigns? The National Peace Committee in Abuja organised the signing.
According to PULSENETS, candidates Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP were among those who signed the agreement.
However, the candidate for the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Bola Tinubu, was not present; Kashim Shettima filled in for him.
Last week, Tinubu’s team fired the opening volley when he urged Nigerians to care about Atiku’s credibility and health rather than his own, stressing that Atiku must be truthful about his health and charges of corruption.
Atiku should have dropped out of the campaign since he was certain to lose again, according to Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity for the Tinubu, Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, PCC.
“It is time for Atiku Abubakar, the 76-year-old presidential candidate of the PDP, to come clean over two issues clouding his campaign: his health status and his scandalous confession of how he colluded with his former boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo to fleece the Nigerian treasury, using the special purpose vehicles after he became Vice-President in 1999.
“We have it on good authority that Atiku indeed fell ill while missing on the field. He was indeed in the UK for some medical help, though handlers camouflage that he was there on the invitation of some British officials at Whitehall, in a mimic of the earlier visit of the APC rival, Asiwaju Tinubu,” the statement partly read.
In response to Tinubu’s accusations and criticism, the Atiku, Okowa Campaign Organization said that Tinubu lacked the moral authority to disparage Atiku’s pristine reputation and integrity.
The campaign’s spokesperson, Kola Ologbodiyan, claimed in a statement that his principle, Atiku, had abstained from bringing up Tinubu’s terrible health problems prior to the disgraceful public dance of the Tinubu/Shettima Campaign.
“The Atiku/Okowa Campaign Organisation mocks the wobbly, wonky and narcotic-devastated presidential candidate of the APC, Asiwaju Tinubu, over his failed attempt to impute illness on the healthy and energetic presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar.
“The campaign also describes as ludicrous the failed attempt by Tinubu, the famed Lagos property stripper, who has gained notoriety as corruption personified and the living example of the artful dodger, to impugn the impeccable character and integrity of the incoming peoples’ President, Atiku,” Ologbodiyan said.
Festus Keyamo, the APC Presidential Campaign Council’s (PCC) spokesman and current Minister of State for Labour, Productivity, and Employment, continued his rhetorical barrage this week by returning fireworks from Tinubu’s camp.
Keyamo claimed that Tinubu’s campaign council had submitted a petition to the anti-financial crime organisations, including the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), calling for the detention and prosecution of PDP candidate Atiku.
He also stated he had set the anti-graft organisations a 72-hour deadline to “arrest/invite, question, and punish Atiku, failing which he indicated he would go to the courts to cause the organisations to act.”
Speaking via the PCC in its Abuja headquarters with the full support of his media directorate, Tinubu’s team also questioned the sources of wealth for both Atiku and Obasanjo, his former principal.
The PCC also played a two-minute audio recording of what was allegedly a conversation between Atiku and a man named Achimugu about possible corruption.
Atiku was accused of violating the Code of Conduct Act, criminal breach of trust, conspiracy, and money laundering by the Campaign Council.
However, the PDP rejected Tinubu’s calls and accusations against its presidential candidate while refuting the claims. It labelled them as made-up accusations and efforts to draw attention away from the problems afflicting Nigerians.
“It is indeed ironic that an embattled Tinubu, who is beleaguered by uncountable cases of fraudulent activities, including perjury, forgery, treasury looting, corruption and narcotic-related conviction can attempt to impugn on the unimpeachable integrity of the PDP Presidential Candidate,” its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba alleged in a statement.
Kola Ologbondiyan, the campaign spokesperson for Atiku and Okowa, sought Tinubu’s immediate arrest and interrogation in a statement released in Abuja on Monday. Tinubu is accused of organising a uniformed band of thugs known as the “Jagaban Army” with the express intent of carrying out an electoral theft.
“The Jagaban Army, which is apparently set up to disrupt the 2023 general elections and raid polling units for votes on behalf of APC Presidential candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is a direct affront to the Nigeria Armed Forces and other security agencies, as well as an assault on the sovereignty of our nation.
“The notion of Jagaban Army is a ploy to bring hoodlums, thugs and gangsters together under cover of the APC and turn them into an official militia that will be used to unleash mayhem on the day of the election,” Ologbondiyan said.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) condemned Atiku and his opponent, Tinubu, on Tuesday for indulging in slanderous attacks against each other.
In a statement, HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, stated that both candidates are “two sides of the same coin” since each claim that their opponent has been found to have supposedly committed the same charge of money laundering that they accuse each other of.
“The case of APC and PDP is very laughable. It is because both Atiku and Tinubu are accusing each other of the same offences that they allegedly said each other committed.
“At least, a spokesman for Tinubu’s campaign and serving minister, Festus Keyamo, confirmed that the APC presidential candidate forfeited $460,000 in one of the 10 US banks linked to him and that he ‘mistakenly’ stayed in the same house as drug barons,” Onwubiko said.
According to Peter Obi, Datti Baba-Ahmed Campaign Organisation spokesman Yunusa Tanko, if the two candidates were to be in a sane society, neither would have the moral standing to run for office due to their verbal conflict.
According to Tanko, Nigeria is the only country where someone may be publicly accused of something serious and yet be eager to run for office.
He added asked Nigerians to support Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, in order to remove those responsible for the nation’s ongoing poverty.
“I watched some of these interviews and my system usually gets upset. In a normal sane society, these two characters do not have the moral standing to run for election in Nigeria.
“It is only in Nigeria that you will see such a catastrophic accusation with proof into the public domain, yet shamelessly people are still willing to run for election and some are even thinking about the situation of even voting for such an individual. It is so demeaning and so embarrassing.
“I will only call on Nigerians to look at the credibility, character, consistency and compassion of Peter Obi, to please use their power of voting to do what we call simultaneous equation by eliminating those who have put us into a perpetual poverty and vote them out of power and vote for Peter Obi.
“That is the only thing I can tell Nigerians because I don’t have the power, my only vote cannot bring Peter Obi. I can only use my mouth to advocate for Nigerians to ensure that they vote for Peter Obi, at least to serve as a deterrent to those who feel they can hold Nigerians captive because of their personal greed, their interest and their corrupt tendencies because they want to continue to perpetuate themselves into power,” Tanko said.
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