INEC Claims To Have Distributed 1.4 million Permanent Voters Card (PVCs) In Plateau State.

The Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) said it had distributed more than 1.4 million
Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in Plateau out of 1.7
million, representing 96.9 per cent.

The Head, Voter Education and Publicity of INEC,
Mr Imahiyereobo Osaretin, told NAN on Sunday in
Jos that voters registered in 2011 and November,
2015 had received their PVCs.

“In general, we collected 1,671,038 PVCs meant for
Plateau from our headquarters and we have so far
distributed 1,429,692, which represents 96.9 per
cent.

“The PVCs now being distributed are for those who
registered during the first registration in 2011 as
well as those who registered in November 2014,”
he said.

He further explained that the distribution is ongoing
at the various registration centres to enable every
registered voter to get their cards before the
upcoming elections.

Osaretin the assured electorate that the collection
of PVCs would last till the period of elections,
rather than March 8 earlier slated by the
commission.

The spokesman warned against collection of the
PVCs by proxy, saying the registered voters must
obtain their cards by themselves and urged them to
get their cards before the election date.

He emphasised that only voters with PVCs would
be accredited to vote on the election date.

Osaretin urged those yet to collect their PVCs to be
patient as the commission was working hard to
ensure they get them.

However, he noted that there were PVCs piled up in
various INEC offices that were yet to collected by
the original owners.

“I know that people of Kanke, Lantang North and
South, and Jos South local government areas have
not gotten their PVCs yet due to some exigencies,
but I want to assure them that we will make it
available soon.

“But again, there are a lot of PVCs lying at our
various local government offices because people
have refused to come for them.

“18,000 PVCs have not been collected and this has
become a source of worry to us,” said Osaretin.

He, therefore, called on the general public especially
those who are yet to collect their PVCs to use the
existing period for the extension to enable them
discharge their civic right.

Ribadu visits Mubi, hails Jonathan, Military over recent successes against Boko Haram

The PDP Gubernatorial Candidate in Adamawa,
Malam Nuhu Ribadu, has hailed President Goodluck
Jonathan for the successes recorded against Boko
Haram.

Ribadu, former chairman of the Economic and
Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), made the
commendation in Mubi on Sunday when he visited
three of the liberated local government areas of the
state.

The visit was to commiserate with the people
affected by the insurgents’ occupation, NAN
reports.

The three local government areas visited included
Mubi North, Mubi South and Maiha.

According to him, the Federal Government and the
military deserve votes of confidence from Nigerians
for reclaiming territories previously occupied by the
insurgents.

He urged Nigerians to return President Goodluck
Jonathan to maintain the tide against insurgency.
“Political stability is key to peace and security,
more so at a time of instability like what we are
witnessing today.

“We cannot afford to disrupt this operation
midstream. This tide should be allowed to continue,”
Ribadu said.

According to him, terrorism is a global phenomenon
which is difficult to purge, adding that no country
has succeeded in eliminating terrorism completely
and within a short time.

“I have worked in many crisis zones, including
Afghanistan; I know what insurgency is all about.

“It is unfortunate that at a time the country should
unite for action against the insurgents we were
busy apportioning blame.

“That is why I refrained from any comment about
this all these while and the victory may not be
total and immediate. It is a gradual process” said
the flag bearer.

He expressed sadness that politics was brought
into issue of insecurity and the war against
insurgency.

Ribadu, however, advised those making unguided
comments to repent and see reasons for the
betterment of Nigeria.

“Our people have suffered for too long, those
hauling words from their comfort zones should
please shut up and give us chance to confront
what directly affects us,” he said.
Ribadu also thanked those he called the real heroes
of the war against the insurgency.

“The military and our gallant members of the
vigilante who sacrificed a lot and even lost their
lives, I am proud to associate with you,” he said.
He said that the president was a careful leader
who quietly does not want to see large number of
collateral damage.

“The President took his time to build this strong
coalition of bringing together our neighbouring
countries,” he said.

According to Ribadu, the result is for everyone to
see, adding that the table is now turned against
the terrorists, and they are on the run.

He said that what only remain was how to
consolidate the success recorded so far and how to
restore life and stability in the affected
communities.

He thanked the president for his foresight for the
establishment of
“Victims Support Fund” and other marshal plans
meant to consolidate on military successes.
“President Goodluck Jonathan is a very
compassionate and kind-hearted person but it is
being misunderstood to mean something else.

“But to me, it is an attribute of a good leader. We
have seen the President demonstrating compassion
in a number of ways.”

Ribadu also commended Gov. Bala Ngillari of the
state for his strong leadership exhibited in the fight
against insurgency.

Nigeria Decides - TAKING ON THE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT CHALLENGE.

The youths constitute critical elements in societal development.
Whatever the human and material resource endowments of any
geo-political entity, no serious Government can afford to
neglect or overlook the youths, who indeed are the foundation
for the future.

For a long period in the Nigerian experience, the youths [18-35
years age bracket] did not receive a fair deal in the
developmental scheme of things. From acts of omission and
commission, they suffered neglect, marginalization,
discrimination and even persecution.

This sorry state of our youths clearly poses threats to national
security, stability and sustainable development, which no
leadership worth its salt would treat with levity. In deference
to these realities, the Jonathan administration incorporated
that critical element into its programme of action.

The [Nigerian] National Policy on Youth conforms to the United
Nations’ guidelines and extends to Nigerian youths in the
Diaspora. It succinctly rates the youth among “the greatest
assets that any nation can have … They serve as a good
measure of the extent to which a country can reproduce as well
as sustain itself …”.
Under the present dispensation, quite a number of initiatives
and activities have come on-stream towards giving Nigerian
youths deserved places in the economy, polity and society.

The National Youth Employment Action Plan [NYEAP] is
anchored on diversification of the nation’s economic base
[particularly into agriculture and agro-business]; operation of
vocational/entrepreneurial/skills development centres for
tertiary level students and youth service members by the State
and FCT administrations; audit-evaluation/restructuring/
strengthening of such job creation agencies as the National
Directorate of Employment, National Poverty Eradication
Programme and Industrial Training Fund; and enhancing the
enabling environment for enterprise development.

Entrepreneurship Development Centres [EDCs] have been set
up in the six geo-political zones of the Federation to bridge
gaps in various elements of youth entrepreneurship
development. To date, over 200,000 youths have benefited
from the programme. The Federal Government is also setting up
Comprehensive Youth Centres in those zones to be operated
and managed under Public Private Partnership [PPP]
arrangements. Included in their schedules are demonstration
farms; standardized vocational training programmes; small
business bureaux for entrepreneurship training; referral and
counselling programmes for youth in conflict situations, those
afflicted with disease and the traumatized; and sporting &
leisure facilities. Such is the attractiveness of the youth centre
initiative that some of the State Governments are setting up
similar facilities to engage their youths constructively.

The Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme
[SURE-P] was inaugurated in the wake of the Federal
Government’s partial removal of oil subsidy in early 2012. Co-
ordinated by the Federal Ministry of Finance and managed by a
team of proven integrity, SURE-P is complementing other
development programmes of the three tiers of governance.

For Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises [MSMEs], a N200
billion Fund is operational to offer inexpensive, long-term
support for youth and women entrepreneurs; with foci on
credit, insurance, capacity building and interest draw-back.

The Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria [You WIN]
programme of the present dispensation provides one-time
equity grants of N1 million–N10 million to each of 1,200
selected aspiring entrepreneurs to start/expand their business
concepts and cushion start-up risks. The facilities are further
expected to generate some 110,000 new jobs for unemployed
Nigerian youths over a three-year period. There is also
provision for training 6,000 aspiring youth entrepreneurs as
well as business expansion, specialization& spin-offs, and
exposure to professional networks.

The administration remains committed to the Niger-Delta
Amnesty/Post-Amnesty programmes. Aside from investments
in the training of affected youths in various institutes across
the world, over 5,000 others are enrolled in formal
educational institutions and vocational centres locally and
abroad.

The NYSC Venture Price competition [operated by the Central
Bank of Nigeria] promotes the entrepreneurship spirit and
expertise in national youth service members; to encourage them
pursue self-employment options. Their exposure includes
rudiments of investment/feasibility reports, business start-
ups and expansion.

Even as the youth development programmes and activities of
the Jonathan administration are yielding positive outcomes,
there are challenges ahead. The populations of the unemployed
and unengaged youths are teeming, what with accumulated
neglect over the decades and increasing number of products
from the nation’s educational institutions.

Youth development in Nigeria poses a collective responsibility.
Governments at all tiers, their institutions, the private sector,
civil society organizations, donor agencies and endowed
individuals are all stakeholders. Youths are not some strange
elements in our midst, but catalysts for meaningful &
sustainable development and an assured future.

By Peter Obi.

Nigerians Decides - THE END OF APC'S FABRICATED MOMENTUM.

I HAVE news for APC stalwarts. You don’t win an election in
Nigeria by being the champion of social media. You don’t win by
renting crowds to fill up your rallies. You don’t win by putting
up your billboards everywhere while tearing down those of your
opponents. You don’t win by master-minding in the media a
false sense of the inevitability of your victory. When you do all
this successfully, you simply end up deceiving yourself.
You win elections by mounting an effective ground-game at the
grassroots level; designed to bring out the people on Election
Day to vote for you. Instead, APC strategy was to stampede
the electorate into victory. The design was to proclaim victory
even before the election, laying grounds for protests and
acrimony in event of defeat.

Attempted coup d’état

The APC blueprint is see-through. Present a new refurbished,
suit-wearing and church-visiting Buhari to the electorate
chanting a mantra of “change.” Give him a Teflon-coated
Redeemed pastor as vice-presidential running-mate. Shield him
from public scrutiny and debates to hide his weaknesses and
absent-mindedness. Gloss over his objectionable past and
pedigree. Mount an aggressive image-laundering social media
campaign.
So doing, before the PDP and the public would be up to your
game, the election would be over. Nigerians would wake up on
February 15th to discover to our cost that we had been
hoodwinked into handing over power to Buhari and the Tinubu
cabal.

The APC mechanism for perfecting this plan entailed bullying
the PDP into defeat. In the North, PDP supporters were
threatened and harassed. Some quickly packed their bag and
baggage and left town. Even Goodluck Jonathan’s convoy was
stoned by APC “democrats.” In Gombe, a suicide bomber paid a
courtesy call on the president’s campaign rally.
But the killer-punch was to be the disenfranchisement of
literally millions of PDP voters. With the complicity of Jega’s
INEC, APC strongholds were supplied with PVCs: while PDP
strongholds were denied them. Ghost-voters came out of the
woodwork by their hundreds of thousands in unlikely places
like the war-torn North-east to collect their PVCs. However, in
peaceful higher-population places like Lagos and Kano, non-
indigenes were denied their PVCs, suspected of being likely
PDP supporters.

It is telling that, in all the ensuing brouhaha over 23 million
people not yet receiving their PVCs seven days to D-Day, APC
remained resolute that the election should go ahead
nevertheless. This indicates that it knew the missing PVCs
belonged disproportionately to PDP supporters.
The denouement
However, the entire strategy of the APC met its Waterloo with
the postponement of the election. With the postponement, the
Buhari election-train came to a screeching halt. Some have
argued that the postponement was a military coup by Jonathan
and the PDP. However, a more truthful assessment is that the
postponement scuttled the APC plan to win the election by
subterfuge.

APC blundered because it refused to entertain the possibility
that the election could actually be postponed. As a result, it
did not plan for that eventuality. In this gaffe, it was carried
away by its own hyperbole. APC big-guns shouted themselves
hoarse warning all and sundry that the election must not be
postponed, or else. Worse still, they believed their own
rhetoric.
APC is used to making threatening noises. It is all stuff and
bluster. If it loses, the dogs and the baboons would be soaked
in blood. If it loses it would form a parallel government. If the
election is postponed, Nigerians would not stand for it.
Therefore, it expended all its political and financial capital on a
14th February election. When it finally dawned on it that the
election might be postponed, Buhari made an unusual visit to
the Council of State to mount a pathetic eleventh-hour
resistance.
But alas, the APC was completely outplayed. INEC succumbed
to the inevitable and the election was postponed, and for six
weeks no less. As a result, the APC stampede came to an end.

The orchestrated Buhari momentum came to a screeching halt.
Since then, APC pundits have been in shock; scratching their
heads because, in all their impetuosity, they had no Plan B.
The APC was banking on the element of surprise. That is now
gone with the postponement. It was hoping to win the election
by disenfranchising PDP voters. That is no longer possible. It is
now confronted with fighting an election it always knew it
cannot win because it does not have the appropriate structure
on the ground at the grassroots level.

PDP fight back

Sixteen years in power had made the PDP over-confident. It
seemed to have been caught unawares by the scripted APC
nomination of Buhari and the gimmickry of choosing a
Redeemed pastor as his running-mate. As a result, an election
that should have been a cake-walk for it suddenly turned into
a tight race. Part of this was self-inflicted. PDP had a bad set
of primaries; creating considerable dissension within its ranks.
Moreover, the PDP was bested in the public relations
department; allowing the APC to define the narrative of the
election on social media.

Had the election gone on as scheduled on 14th February, it
would have been close but Jonathan would still have won. But
with six weeks delay, the election will not even be close. Even
though it was ebbing discernibly, APC had momentum for the
14th February election. By 28th March, that momentum would
have dissipated and disappeared. Even now, the momentum is
no longer there. Buhari is in London on a dubious visit. APC has
run out of breath.

Make no mistake about it; the six week postponement of the
election has effectively crippled the APC. It is no wonder then
that the party has been grumbling non-stop. In the meantime,
PDP has been able to get a full measure of the APC. Putting all
its eggs in the 14th February date, which it insisted cannot and
must not be changed; the APC played all its cards. It put all its
eggs in one basket. However, PDP held some in reserve,
banking on the postponement of the election.

APC’s confusion

What happens now? APC is confused. It is stretched for funds.
It has lost its mojo, scrambling in panic mode to raise
additional 50 billion naira from donors. Speaking to APC
stakeholders at the party secretariat in Lagos, Bola Tinubu
said: “We have to re-strategise; all of you should go back to
your various constituencies starting from tomorrow.” This is a
belated acknowledgment that the party now likely to win the
election is the one best able to mount an aggressive and
effective nationwide grassroots campaign.

In that department, the APC is clearly second-best. The party
best positioned to mount an effective ground-game and
mobilize votes at the grassroots level is the PDP. It has been
around for 16 years. PDP local government councilors account
for nearly 70 per cent of all councilors in Nigeria, comprising
6,521 members, making it a truly grassroots-based political
party. The APC, on the other hand, does not have the
nationwide political structure to win the coming election. To
date, it is a newspaper and television political party. It has yet
to build a formidable grassroots support. It is a JJC party, a
little over a year old.
With all the noise about Buhari, it should not be forgotten that
the man chronically lacks skills at building political party
structures. In the APC presidential primaries, Northern
delegates did not even vote for him; preferring instead
Kwankwaso and Atiku. He was elected primarily on the
strength of ACN votes. PDP strength on the ground
everywhere in Nigeria explains why Jonathan was able to win
37% of the vote even in Buhari’s home-state of Katsina in the
2011 election.

While APC was busy stoking up the press to create its air of
inevitable victory, PDP was busy mobilizing its local
government councilors. Its Presidential Campaign Organisation
brought all its elected and appointed councilors from all over
Nigeria to Abuja to mobilize them to secure victory for the
party at the grassroots level. In what was captioned
“Operation Deliver Your Ward,” Professor Jerry Gana re-
fashioned them as political foot-soldiers and grassroots
mobilisers for the PDP, split into six groups according to their
geopolitical zones.

Resurgent PDP

Since the postponement, Jonathan is no longer the issue. It is
once again Buhari; the coup-plotting former dictator and
alleged ethnic and religious jingoist. Thanks to the
postponement, Nigerians can no longer be panicked into voting
for Buhari. We now have enough time to appreciate that he is
old, and completely bereft of ideas as to what to do when in
power. It is not enough to shout “change, change.” The
question is: change to what? To this question, Buhari provides
a deafening silence.

In the meantime, the true message of Jonathan’s considerable
achievements in office is now resonating. With the
commissioning of new power-plants, we are now generating
5,500 megawatts of electricity: a new Nigerian record. We now
know from PricewaterhouseCoopers that the allegation that
$20 billion is missing from NNPC accounts is one big fat APC
lie. The army is now fully-equipped for battle. For the first time
in a long time, the Nigerian air force has come into the fray.

The Boko Haram is being bombed to smithereens up North.
There is even talk of capturing Abubakar Shekau alive.
Within the next six weeks, all that is left is for the PDP to put
its house in order and APC will be toast. Since Buhari has
whipped up himself and his supporters into an unrealistic
psychological frenzy in this election cycle, it is certain he will
end up at the tribunal, when it finally dawns on him that, in
spite of all the bluster, he has lost again. The fate awaiting
Buhari brings to mind that of Mitt Romney who was so
deceived into believing he would be elected America’s next
president in 2012, he had only a victory speech on election
night when he was roundly defeated.

When the history of the 2015 presidential election is finally
written, it will be recalled that the postponement of the
election for six weeks was the final nail in the coffin of the

By Femi Aribisala.

Nigerians decides - Why Jonathan wins

I’m just as mad as the next man about the failings of the
Jonathan administration. Many a Nigerian has wondered how
he hired some of those people who work for him and why they
serve him so poorly and, worse, why no one does anything
about it when they fail him.

The job of the President carries strict liability. He must accept
responsibility for all happenings. When bad things happen, we
know it is because of the reign of a bad king, the President.
Rarely do good things occur, or they happen so grudgingly,
they are so few and far between.
In an era of ‘Ghana must go’ wallets, there is so much envy of
the rich. You can feel it. And the trouble with the Nigerian rich
is that they are mostly men and women who made hay while
the sun shone, which makes the envy worse. And all this envy
is taken out on the one man who is the symbol of everything,
good or bad, the President.

People sometimes look at me reproachfully when I publicly con­
fess that I am a fan of Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the
Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance.
I quickly try to explain that she is one person among the high
and the mighty who speaks naturally and frequently about
income inequality in Nigeria, and the dangers of widening the
gap between the rich and the poor.

A fortnight ago she was speaking about how corruption
subsists and will fester because Nigeria does not yet have
adequate tools to fight it. H ow I wished t he A ll Progressive
Congress (APC) had drafted her or someone like her for
President. This campaign would have been a truly ‘change’ cam­
paign, a “change you can believe in” as Mr. Barack Obama pro­
claimed in 2008. But I digress.

The Jonathan administration can be infuriating sometimes. Its
first action which truly rattled me was the seizure of
newspapers and the prevention of the circulation of the papers
in several cities by military personnel. It went on for a few
days and, mercifully, stopped.

The military people said they were searching for terrorists’
bombs in the newspaper vans. The Presidency people said they
have nothing to say about it because it was a “security issue.”

For a newspaper man who experienced government
suppression of the Press first hand and in all its forms in the
triple tyrannies of Buhari, Babangida and Abacha I was about
to exclaim “there we go again.”

Now, an ‘O’ level student of Government doesn’t need to think
twice to know that what the military was doing was brazenly
unconstitutional. So, where was President Jonathan’s domestic
policy adviser, or his State House Counsel or, for that matter,
the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice to order the
soldiers to “cease and desist” on the very first day.

I had hoped the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria
NPAN) would send a hefty bill to the Aso Villa for those
violations with an ultimatum, hoping the government would
ignore it so the NPAN can go to court to ask for declarations
and punitive damages for violations of Press freedom. I imagine
it all ended in a friendly ‘ol boy’ phone call to forgive and
forget. This kind of violation would be inconceivable in the
United States where respect for the Constitution is the
beginning of governmental wisdom.

Then there was the $9.3 million cash in the suitcase in the
plane from Abuja seized in South Africa. Had the South African
Customs not found and seized the cash what evidence was
there that the money wouldn’t have disappeared? The Ministry
of Finance didn’t know about the money, neither did Defense,
nor Foreign Affairs nor Department of State Security. Using
the office of the National Security Adviser to buy arms is a
double edged sword.
Trundling cash around the continent is not just illegal but
smelly. Whoever was responsible for that transaction made the
Jonathan administration look queer, inept if not corrupt. The
Igbos have a saying that if you are not a thief, never step on
the footprints left by a thief.

The phantom ceasefire with Boko Haram was the saddest of all
Jonathan Administration’s bunglings.It made many Nigerians
miserable. It was inexcusable. It marked the lowest point. The
Federal Republic of Nigeria, a victim of 419? Tell it not in Jos.
Publish it not in the streets of Ado Ekiti.

The above are the few that stick out with me above others.
Each is scandalous. None can happen in the United State where
there are layers of checks and balances to preclude their
happening. But if any of that happened, there would be hell to
pay.

The virtue of Jonathan is not that he is perfect. It is that he
knows that he is imperfect. So, he is bound to work harder,
read more, study issues more and be better informed. Because
he got there by fortunate occurrences, he wouldn’t have ar­
rived with a g rand vision. So, he would be open to whatever
works. Because he is an intellectual, he won’t be averse to
theories about anything. He wouldn’t have inferiority or Mr.

Know-All complex, or the Obasanjo complex also known as the
Messiah complex. He is not afraid of talented, accomplished
women as everyone can see.

He is a builder – 12 universities, 120 Al-Majiri schools. He plans
to build speed trains after reviving the snail trains and added
some standard gauge lines. How many power plants has he
built? Dozens. But certainly with the huge Gembu hydro under
construction, four coal plants being planned, and all the
integrated Independent Power Plants built and ready to go,
Goodluck Jonathan finally slew the power dragon, the
nightmare that had defied all administrations before his. Two
outstanding problems remain – gas and transmission. When
those are tied up Nigeria’s power problems would be history.

Jonathan’s body language is not that of a greedy, corrupt man.
Corruption in Nigeria is structural and, pessimists say,
Sisyphean. To make a dent on it, a sovereign national
conference needs to be convened. Nibbling at the edges is still
okay which is what the EFCC and ICPC do. The ICT tools like
IPPIS, electronic wallet to enable farmers access fertilizer
directly are all great. But as Chief Philip Asiodu, the ‘super
permanent secretary’ and statesman said a few weeks ago,
when a Nigerian senator earns four times the pay of an
American President, a clear case of unjust enrichment, how is a
president going to start a fight which would end with his
impeachment? Unjust enrichment is the beginning of all
corruption. Why has Gen. Buhari been quiet about the pay of
the National Assembly?

That Jonathan is a patient man is fairly obvious. He is
deliberative. He doesn’t rush to judgment. He doesn’t force the
process. He sometimes exhibits strength of character. He
defied the doubting Thomases and convened the National
Conference, one of the most momentous events of Nigerian his­
tory, in which thorny national issues were discussed candidly
in an atmosphere of freedom.

But above all, Jonathan wins because he has a democratic
temperament, a genial, non-threatening personality and a
sportsman-like spirit which made APC possible and created an
atmosphere of freedom and liberty unprecedented in Nigerian
history. He could have destroyed APC and squashed the party
if he were a typical Nigerian politician. But he is of a different
make-up.

The Action Group in the 60’s and the Peoples Redemption
Party in the 80’s were victims of political malevolence and ill
will. The APC would not have survived an Obasanjo regime,
much less threaten it. Jonathan guarantees democracy, his
opponent imperils it.

By Lewis Obi

Naira weakens further, sells at N224 to dollar at BDC

The Naira on Friday weakened further as it sold at
N224 against the dollar at the Bureau de Change
(BDC).

NAN reports that the Naira also exchanged against
the dollar at N220 at the black market.

But, the currency traded N199 to a dollar at the
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

The currency, however, gained N2 against the
pound at the BDC, selling at N330, from N332 it
sold on Monday.

At the black market, however, the Naira remained
stable, maintaining N335 to the pound, which it
attained on Feb. 23. It sold at N307.59 to a pound
at the CBN.

Against the Euro at the black market, Naira sold at
N255 as against N235 it was sold on Monday.

At the BDC, it exchanged at N245 against the
Euro, increasing from the N235 it was sold on
Monday, while at the CBN, it sold at N226.7.

Your blackmail can’t stop Buhari from winning the presidential election – APC tells Fayose

The All Progressives Congress, APC, in Ekiti State
has said Governor Ayodele Fayose’s alleged
blackmail of its presidential candidate, Muhammadu
Buhari, cannot stop him from emerging victorious in
the March 28 election.

According to the APC, Fayose’s criticism of Buhari
is driven by self-preservation over the governor’s
past misdeeds and not in the interest of the nation.
The APC said Fayose is “fighting the battle of his
life” that runs contrary to the general mood of the
nation, and therefore advised him focus his energy
on how to ensure victory for PDP’s candidate,
President Goodluck Jonathan, instead of lecturing
APC on why Buhari shouldn’t be the party’s
presidential candidate.

The APC’s position was contained in a statement
by the state Publicity Secretary of the party, Taiwo
Olatubosun.

He said Nigerians had already made up their minds
to elect Buhari as their President on March 28,
adding that, “No amount of blackmail and rhetoric
fuelled by selfishness will change the course of
change sweeping across the country.”

Olatubosun, while reminding Fayose that APC was
different from the PDP, said, “PDP has an agenda
to kill all institutions of government as it is
currently doing and make corruption a creed. Never
in the history of this country have we recorded
cases of frauds and scandals as we have today in
Nigeria. These are the legacies that PDP can flaunt.
Unfortunately, Fayose is equating PDP with
Nigeria.

“Fayose has turned APC to a PDP affair. He said
former President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed a sick
man, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, on PDP in 2007
and President Yar’Adua died after two years in
office. The question is; is Buhari in PDP and is he
now being imposed by Obasanjo again? How does
Buhari’s old age threaten PDP’s bid to rule for 60
years?

“Again, Fayose said he had a vision that Buhari will
never be president. If he is sure of his vision, why
is he breathless about Buhari’s candidacy?”
Olatubosun also stated that Fayose was being
hypocritical in his criticism of Buhari and the
allegations he was raising over his health status,
noting that his actions pointed to the fact that
Buhari was the favored candidate majority of
Nigerians are clamoring for.