According to a statement issued by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, in Abuja, the APC, and the Buhari Presidency, having failed to stop the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as Presidential candidate; having failed in their attempts to smear him with unfounded allegations, have now resorted to attacking our vice Presidential candidate and trying to create the impression that he is not well received in some parts of the country.
The PDP said it was already aware of how the APC has paid millions of naira to hack writers to spin negative narratives with a view to create an impression of disagreement and bad blood among our leaders and members across the northern and southern divides, who have since aligned with the Atiku/Obi ticket.
The statement added: “PDP and majority of Nigerians are aware that the APC and the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency have been jittery since the emergence of Atiku Abubakar as our Presidential candidate, a disposition that heightened with the choice of Peter Obi as his running mate, hence their frenzy to cause confusion within our fold.”
The PDP restated that the combination of Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, with their internationally acclaimed forthrightness, hard work, ingenuity and managerial competencies, guarantee a prudent and result-oriented administration that will liberate the nation from the economic shackles which the wasteful, incompetent, and deceptive APC administration has plunged our nation into.
Furthermore, it stated, “the Buhari Presidency and APC’s unrelenting resort to fabrications and personal attacks against our candidates instead of presenting their claimed achievements and programmes to Nigerians, confirms that they have nothing to offer as they have been trending on false performance claims and propaganda.
“On our own part, the PDP, as a Pan Nigerian and performance-oriented political party, will never descend to the shallows with the fading APC and the Buhari Presidency, but focus on how to salvage our nation from the economic hardship, acute hunger and starvation as well as the daily bloodletting that have become the order of the day under the President Buhari administration.
“Nigerians have gone through enough pain and anguish under President Buhari and no amount of smear campaign and personal attack on our candidates will ever whittle their resolve to vote in Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi with their proven political will and commitment to the welfare of Nigerians.”
The party also denied that it had made further appointments into its Presidential Campaign Council set up recently.
While dismissing “a phony post” circulating in the social media and purporting that the PDP has released further names to make up its 2019 Presidential Campaign Council, it asserted that the fabricators of the post even went further to allocate offices to certain individuals, claiming same to be officially assigned by the leadership of our great party.
The party remarked that for the avoidance of doubt, it has not released any further names other than those earlier released as members of the Presidential Campaign Council.
It pointed out that the only names and offices assigned and released by the party are those of the Director-General and Zonal Coordinators of the 2019 Presidential campaign.
The PDP cautioned that any other names being bandied around and purported to have emanated from the party should be discountenanced accordingly.
The party therefore urged all members to remain calm and awaits further announcement by the National Working Committee on the composition of the Campaign Council in due course.