The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has alleged that the “Aso Rock cabal” wants a pliable candidate and not a strong-willed and experienced member of the party to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari, hence, the sabotage of the presidential candidate of the party, Bola Tinubu.
At the same time, the campaign council has described a recent presidential election poll results released by Nextier as a pretext to cause political crisis and riots in Nigeria after the February 25 presidential election.
Tinubu had recently in Abeokuta alleged that the ongoing fuel scarcity and Naira redesign were part of an orchestrated plot to frustrate his ambition.
In the same vein, the Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai while speaking on ARISE NEWS alleged that certain elements in the Villa were working against the party and its candidate.
However, the Director, Special Duties (11) of the APC PCC, Chief Ayiri Emami, while addressing journalists on Sunday in Abuja, maintained that some Aso Rock elements were afraid of a successor with a strong social and political network with capacity to correct the error in governance.
His words, “Let me use myself as an example. Even in our small community, if you know your right and you know what you are doing and you want to lead, many people will come after you.
“Because a lot of people don’t want somebody that understands the system to lead because all they know is how to manipulate. Asiwaju knows the inner workings of governance. I am not saying that he knows it all.
“So you will see every day all kinds of battles or kind of blackmail, or kind of way to stop him and that is how I see Asiwaju. He knows a lot about governance, he knows what to do to make sure that this place works.
“And if it works, there are persons that are doing dubious things that would not be able to do it again. So, if such a person is to take over, it won’t be an easy battle because they know he knows the inner workings of government and can’t be manipulated,” he said.
The party chieftain pointed out that with the revelations coming from the APC Governors at last Friday’s meeting with President Buhari, it was now clear to Nigerians that the naira notes redesign did not enjoy the buy-in of the APC-led administration at all levels.
Emami insisted that those policies were not APC policy, saying the policies were only meant to sabotage the party’s candidate.
“They are not policies of the APC at all, because if they were the policies of the APC, everybody would be involved. These are policies of some few persons to sabotage. Why introduce such policies during the election?” he said.
On the perceived indifference of President Buhari to the APC Presidential campaign, Emami said it was not indicative of any lack of commitment or cold war between Tinubu and the president.
“To me, even his own election, it was other people that were actually championing his campaign. So, I just feel that that is his normal style. All humans are not the same,” he said.
Meanwhile, in another development, the Director, Media and Publicity APC PCC, Bayo Onanuga, in another statement has alleged that a pollster might be preparing grounds for violent protests by Obi supporters, who would allege rigging when their candidate is roundly defeated at the election, in which he was not likely to even come a distant 3rd.
He said the campaign was reacting for the sake of unsuspecting Nigerians, so that they were not misled by the Patrick Okigbo-led organisation, which appeared to have the agenda to create confusion and chaos in the country.
Onanuga said Nigerians should know that promoters of Nextier were members of Mr. Peter Obi’s Presidential Campaign Council and active campaigners for the Labour Party Presidential Candidate, stressing also that any poll conducted by such “intensely partisan” and prejudicially tainted organisation should be taken with a pinch of salt.
While noting that this was apart from the fact that the sample size of the so-called poll and methodology employed could not stand any integrity test, the APC campaign said it was quite ludicrous that Nextier Poll that projected a clean sweep of the South-East Region at over 90 per cent of registered votes also put Obi ahead of its presidential candidate, Tinubu,in the six South West states including Lagos.
“Assuming without absolutely conceding that Peter Obi will enjoy home advantage in his part of the country, we then wonder why the pollsters at Nextier, if they have any modicum of respect for the intellect of Nigerians, thought the factors that will propel landslide victory for Obi in South east will not work for the APC candidate in his own South West base,” he said.
Onanuga contended that Nextier Pollsters, also put L
abour Party ahead of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in his home state of Adamawa, adding that Nextier Pollsters called the entire South South region for the Labour Party at 60 per cent in Akwa-Ibom, the base of the Chairman of PDP Presidential Campaign Council.
He further pointed out that the partisan pollsters gave Bayelsa 62.9 per cent to Labour Party and also claimed the party would win Delta 65.9 per cent, home of PDP Vice Presidential Candidate.
At the same time, he stressed that “the jesters” in Nextier also claimed Obi would win Rivers by 77.8 per cent, Edo 76.9 per cent and Cross Rivers 63.2 per cent, adding that it did not matter to them that in these states, Labour Party has no serving councillor in any ward.
Onanuga, therefore, maintained that it was important to alert Nigerians and the international community that the Pollsters at Nextier were working for the Labour Party and their poll results were all cooked up, far away from reality.
THISDAY
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