2023: Nigerians’ll reject Buhari’s preferred candidate ― PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has told President Muhammadu Buhari to end his thoughts on favoring any candidate to succeed him as Nigerians will reject such individual.

The party gave the admonition in a statement issued by Hon. Debo Ologunagba, its National Publicity Secretary Thursday, positing that Nigerians will firmly resist any candidate put forward by him and his All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 Presidential election.

This followed President Buhari’s remark during a television interview where he indicated that he would keep secret any aspirant that he might support for the 2023 presidential election so that he/she may not be “eliminated.”

The PDP also berated Buhari for “embarrassing his office and making a huge joke of himself by appearing confused and dwelling on false figures and bogus performance claims in his disastrous Channels Television interview on Wednesday, January 5, 2022.”

The party said while it understands that “lying is the standard gauge of the performance of the APC, it is rather unfortunate that the president is also in that frame,” adding: “It only reinforces the fact that nobody is immune to lying in the APC. Of course, he cannot extricate himself because lying is the official policy of his party, the APC.

The main opposition party debunked the president’s oft-repeated claim that crude oil sold at over $100 per barrel under the PDP whereas it crashed to $37 when he took overpower.

It said: “In his ludicrous attempt to rationalize his failures in office, President Buhari falsely claimed that under the PDP, from 1999 to 2014, crude oil sold for an average of $100 per barrel but collapsed to $37 per barrel when he and his APC assumed office.

“Such false claims fly in the face of hard fact as the records, which the President must have, clearly show that when the PDP took office on May 29, 1999, crude oil sold at $16.27 per barrel and at about $80.42 and $63.28 by November and December 2014 respectively.

“Under President Buhari and the APC, the oil price has never fallen as low as $16 per barrel as recorded under the PDP but started at $37 to $39.44 per barrel in 2016 and had continued to hover between $60 to $70 per barrel to date.

“It is on record that despite the low oil revenue when the PDP took over, it expanded the economy, paid off our foreign debts, revamped our productive sectors, provided a conducive investment environment which encouraged massive foreign investments and handed over a $550 billion economy (largest in Africa and 26th globally) to President Buhari and the APC in 2015.

“Mr. President had no answers when, in the Channels TV interview, he was confronted with the facts that when he took over, the debt stock was N12 trillion but now N32 trillion and counting; that inflation, which was about 9 percent under the PDP is now over 15 percent; that unemployment rate, which was about 8.9 percent is now 33 percent, that our naira which exchanged at about N197 to a dollar under the PDP is now over N500 and that the petrol price which was N87 in 2015 is now N165 per liter under the APC watch.

“President Buhari should have seized the opportunity provided by Channels TV to show remorse, apologise to Nigerians for his monumental failure and national embarrassment that the APC government represents instead of trying to rationalize APC’s failures with falsehood and grandstanding about a successor.

“The mindset of Mr. President as exhibited in the Channels TV interview confirms the fears of Nigerians that the APC does not believe in democratic practice and is determined to manipulate the 2023 election by all means.

“That explains their desperation to scuttle the Electoral Act Amendment Bill provision for electronic transmission of election results, which will effectively truncate the APC’s plans to rig the 2023 election.”

The PDP advised President Buhari and the APC to know that “Nigerians are fully rallied on the platform of the PDP to face them in 2023 and that the resort to underhand processes and false indices like those reeled out by Mr. President in his Channels TV interview will not avail them.”

YOU SHOULD NOT MISS THESE HEADLINES FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

We Have Not Had Water Supply In Months ― Abeokuta Residents

In spite of the huge investment in the water sector by the government and international organisations, water scarcity has grown to become a perennial nightmare for residents of Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. This report x-rays the lives and experiences of residents in getting clean, potable and affordable water amidst the surge of COVID-19 cases in the state…

Selfies, video calls and Chinese documentaries: The things you’ll meet onboard Lagos-Ibadan train

The Lagos-Ibadan railway was inaugurated recently for a full paid operation by the Nigerian Railway Corporation after about a year of free test-run. Our reporter joined the train to and fro Lagos from Ibadan and tells his experience in this report…

[ICYMI] Lekki Shootings: Why We Lied About Our Presence — General Taiwo

The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry probing the killings at Lekki Toll Gate, on Saturday resumed viewing of the 24hrs footage of the October 20, 2020 shooting of #EndSARS protesters by personnel of the Nigerian Army…

ICYMI: How We Carried Out The 1993 Nigerian Airways Hijack —Ogunderu

On Monday, October 25, 1993, in the heat of June 12 annulment agitations, four Nigerian youngsters, Richard Ajibola Ogunderu, Kabir Adenuga, Benneth Oluwadaisi and Kenny Razak-Lawal, did the unthinkable! They hijacked an Abuja-bound aircraft, the Nigerian Airways airbus A310, and diverted it to Niger Republic. How did they so it? Excerpts…

ICYMI: What North Will Not Accept About 2023 Presidency —Prof Mahuta, UDU Don And Kebbi Dev Foundation Chairman

Sahabi Danladi Mahuta, a community mobiliser and APC chieftain. Mahuta spoke to select journalists at the sidelines of an Islamic conference in Abuja recently. Excerpts…