A spokesman of the People’s Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization (PDPCO), Kassim Afegbua, has said that the visit of former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the PDP Atiku Abubakar to the United States, has plunged the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and President Muhammadu Buhari into continuous confusion.
Afegbua said this in a statement on Sunday in response to statement credited to the spokesman of the APC campaign organization, Festus Keyamo, who had castigated the visit.
Afegbua noted that ordinarily, “one would just have ignored this drab, incongruous and empty rhetoric of a statement by the Buhari Campaign Organisation but for those undiscerning members of the public, it is appropriate to put certain records straight.”
He stressed that first of all the Buhari Campaign Organisation has made a political capital out of the issue of the USA’s denial of visa to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, adding that in most of their campaigns, the factional National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and other chieftains had boastfully told their rally audiences that Alhaji Atiku could not travel to America.
” When the news came that Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was to be issued visa, the APC shamelessly sponsored and orchestrated a public protest to the Abuja office of the USA Embassy, on a day that the Americans were observing public holiday.
“The APC has repeatedly made this trip an issue, even when they realised that president Buhari, was banned for 15 solid years from travelling to America. The ban was lifted in 2015 after he had won election as president, and till date, he cannot travel to America except he obtains a waiver from the US State Department.
“Even though we do not see any big deal about Atiku Abubakar’s trip, we see a bigger deal in the nature and content of the trip which afforded our candidate the opportunity to interact, engage, and robustly discuss a wide range of issues affecting our country occasioned by the lack-lustre and incompetent leadership of President Buhari’s emanations,” the statement said.
Afegbua noted that as a presidential candidate with an eye for the future and place of Nigeria in the comity of nations, it is Atiku’s responsibility as an effective and result-driven leader to globalise issues that have held Nigeria down by the ineffective APC and President Buhari’s leadership.
He pointed out that when President Buhari visited the White House in the US, he literarily brought home a de-marketing “gift”, decorated with the inscription, “lifeless president”, to the consternation of all. He said that Buhari rather than speak to the challenges confronting Nigeria, was busy defending the herders that had turned Nigeria’s landscape to killing fields with rivers of blood flowing across the states of the Federation.
Afegbua also noted that President Buhari signed away $496m for twelve pieces of Tucano fighter jets, when Pakistan and Afghanistan got higher quantities for same price.
“That president Buhari’s trip gave early warnings about the phlegmatic leadership that the country was to face. Two years later, we are not only faced with a government that has been outsourced, but one that is rotating in circles, dominated by “two old men” that are holding the presidency by the jugular, gasping for breath as it were to keep the nation afloat. The APC and the Buhari Campaign Organisation cannot possibly understand the dynamics of global politics, reason why they couldn’t place their leprose fingers on the positive outcome of the US trip of our candidate,” the statement said.
The statement added that Atiku Abubakar did not only engage with an array of American Business men, he had robust engagement with members of Congress and Nigerians in diaspora who have since keyed into the moving train of “Atikulated” campaign to rescue the country from Buhari’s mentally hollow leadership that has brought hunger, poverty, malnutrition, deprivation and stagnation across the land.
“The government has not only made us mourners on our land, they have converted us all to internally displaced persons in search of relief materials. Killings, bloodletting, kidnappings and armed banditry have become the notable items on the menu of this government. How would such a government understand the import of Atiku Abubakar’s trip to USA? How? How?
“Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s trip was well captured across the world in major news platforms. He did not only grant interviews, his itinerary was well-laid out in a manner that explains his sense of organisation, discipline for time, and coordination.
“Having been caught napping by this trip to deflate the often held wrong notion that Atiku Abubakar could not travel to America, a notion which the APC promoted to the level of a campaign issue, they are yet to recover from their High Blood Pressure occasioned by this political mileage. It is therefore understandable why they are dithering and trying to rake up mud to distract and divert attention.
“For a campaign organisation and a government that cannot showcase its achievements in four years other than blame game, it is no surprise that they would make Atiku Abubakar the issue in their campaigns. This government does not only exhibit crass incompetence and under-performance, its blurred content, low mentality, drifting psychology, and psychedelic world-view have plunged Nigeria and Nigerians into leadership atrophy.
” Rather than face the huge challenges that stare us in the face as a by-product of outsourced leadership, the BUHARI CAMPAIGN ORGANISATION is trying to divert attention away from the nepotism, cronyism, hypocrisy, and selective amnesia that have become the thematic focus of this administration,” the statement said.
Innocent Odoh, Abuja
