The All Progressives Congress has branded the recent claim by Femi Fani-Kayode/Goodluck Jonathan Campaign Organisation, that former Lagos State Governor and APC National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu is scheming to seize power from the President after polls, untrue and nauseating.
Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP-PCO, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode at a news conference in Abuja on Friday said,
“It should baffle well-meaning Nigerians why Tinubu has decided to draft Buhari, despite his age, acrimonious background and questionable health status, into the presidential race whilst ensuring that his stooge, Prof Osinbajo, was foisted on the general as vice presidential candidate.
“The reason is that the PDP-PCO wishes to use this forum to expose the ungodly plan by Tinubu to seize the presidency of Nigeria by subterfuge. You will recall how Tinubu wanted to be running mate to Buhari in spite of the nationwide resentment for Muslim-Muslim ticket that he and Buhari planned to foist on their party.
“Senator Tinubu had justified the ticket by saying that competence was the important thing and not the issue of religion. But when he and Buhari could not push through the agenda within the APC, he (Tinubu), after being given the opportunity to nominate a vice presidential candidate, decided to prop up his stooge in the person of Prof. Osinbajo.
“Now the real reason Tinubu nominated Osinbajo has been made known to us and we hereby offer a public service to the Nigerian people by drawing their national attention to it. Credible pieces of information at our disposal indicate that Tinubu has perfected plans to come to power through the back door.
“Tinubu, according to our information, has compelled Osinbajo to swear to an oath that after six months in office, he would resign as the vice president, in the unlikely event that their party wins. The wicked plot, as laid out by them, is to force Osinbajo to resign for Tinubu to be nominated by Buhari as his replacement.
“The ultimate objective of this plot is to ensure that Tinubu becomes President. The script is simple: given the questionable health of Buhari, Tinubu, who is desperate to be president for his own selfish reasons, will simply bid his time in the evil expectation that Buhari will not be able to go the whole hog.
“How wicked can those that hatched this plan be? How unfair can they be to the North, to Buhari and to Nigerians? We wish Buhari long life. Senator Tinubu’s dangerous plan is about getting power. This is sad. No thoroughbred Yoruba man or indeed Nigerian wants to get power through the misfortune of another person.
“But this is the perfidious path that Tinubu is passing through. This is repugnant. It will interest you to know that our information is strengthened by the very similar act of resignation which Senator Tinubu had planned to force on Pastor Tunde Bakare which you can all watch now.
Here’s the response by the APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.
“Our presidential candidate’s globally-acclaimed outing has presented Nigerians, and indeed the global community, with a choice between a bumbling, ineffective, incoherent, clueless, visionless and incompetent President and an assertive, knowledgeable, dignified, purposeful and principled President-in-waiting.
“Having failed to discredit the (United Kingdom) outing with a rented crowd, some of whom confessed to have been paid to carry placards they did not even understand, the PDP and the Jonathan Administration have now resorted to making nauseating claims that are totally untrue, absolutely incomprehensible and nothing but sheer bunkum.”
“They have thrown everything imaginable at Gen. Buhari, but he has continued to wax stronger and stronger: They said he was not qualified, that he was too old, then they fabricated a medical report of an illness of their own choice, sponsored death wish adverts against him and instituted a myriad of court cases to stop him.
“After they failed to stop him, they went after the election itself, using the PVCs as a tool to launch a campaign for postponement and, when they realised that would not work, came up with the bogey of insecurity in the North-East to force a postponement of the election, hoping they can buy enough time to revive their electoral misfortune.
“With everything working against them, they engaged in a show of shame at The Chatham House that backfired badly, on the heels of their bare-faced lies that Gen. Buhari was hospitalised in London. The preposterous claim of a secret oath – reminiscent of what they do in their own party – by the apparently ailing spokesman for the Jonathan Campaign Organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, is their latest desperate act.”
