The All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday fired back at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saying expectations that the opposition party under the Dr Iyiorcha Ayu-led leadership would denounce impunity had been dimmed.
Specifically, APC noted that going by the utterances and direction of the new PDP leadership, any hope of a refocused opposition party expected to atone for misdeeds against the country when it was in government for 16 years and as a failed opposition party following its sack in 2015 had now been quickly dashed.
The governing party was reacting to remarks made by the new national chairman of the PDP on Friday in which he served the APC a “quit notice” on grounds that in the last six years, the APC-led government had mismanaged Nigeria’s diversity, splitting the country along regional and religious lines by exacerbating religious tensions in the country.
But hitting back at the PDP, the APC said Ayu’s tenure appears to be an extension of the calamitous and lacklustre administration of his immediate predecessor, Chief Uche Secondus.
In a statement issued yesterday by its national secretary, Sen. John James Akpanudoedehe, the party expressed dismay that the new leadership of the PDP led by Ayu had demonstrated early signs that it is not different from the immediate-past and sacked leadership of the failed opposition party.
The statement noted: “Clearly, the PDP’s sole intent is power grabbing by any means, ignoring the need for genuine restitution, return of stolen public funds and assets still in possession of politically exposed persons during its 16-year administration and ultimately providing a truly viable and credible opposition our democracy needs to thrive.
“The PDP’s new leadership must prove to Nigerians that it is willing and ready to discard its penchant for impunity by submitting to the new democratic environment entrenched by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC government where votes count and the will of the people prevails in all electoral contests.
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The APC national scribe further noted that President Muhammadu Buhari’s assurance to Nigerians and the international community that the 2023 general elections would be free and fair as well as his pledge to peacefully transfer power had discarded “the sit-tight syndrome headlined by the PDP’s ill-fated third-term agenda” as an “undemocratic template.”
Noting that Buhari’s declaration is archetypal of the stuff of true progressives and statesmanship, he said, “The priority of this administration has been clearing the national rot left behind by the PDP’s shambolic handling of insecurity in its early days, its financial heist under the guise of procuring military weapons, fuel subsidy rackets, diverted loans, voodoo economics, abuse of public institutions and electoral fraud.
