Tinubu attacking us to gain political relevance, PDP claims

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that it regards recent statement by the All Progressives Congress (APC) national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as an attempt to curry political relevance.

Tinubu had during an Iftar dinner meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Saudi Arabia on Monday, attacked the opposition party.

He claimed that PDP leaders made “saucy and distractive statements’’ because of their “colossal defeat” at the general elections.

“Don’t blame them. They are handicapped by the traumatic feelings of the colossal loss of the election,” he had said.

However, PDP spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement on Tuesday, alleged that Tinubu was ostensibly attacking the PDP for his selfish pecuniary interests.

He said by travelling to faraway Mecca, at this Ramadan period, just to meet the President and engage in gossips, invectives and diatribes against the PDP, Asiwaju Tinubu has further demonstrated that he has nothing to offer towards the development of our nation.

READ ALSO: Tinubu meets Buhari in Saudi Arabia

The statement read in part:
“It is atrocious that at the time other leaders are in the Holy Land offering prayers and supplications for our nation, Asiwaju Tinubu is in Mecca for photo-ops, playing dirty politics and hauling insults at other Nigerians just to curry relevance before President Buhari.

“The party noted that nothing but sheer hypocrisy would push Asiwaju Tinubu to engage in unholy praises of a failed administration in desperation to avert the purported threats by certain agents of the Buhari Presidency to expose him.

“This is the same Asiwaju Tinubu, who, in January 2018, at the 15th Annual Daily Trust Dialogue, berated the Buhari administration for its nepotism, incompetence, corrupt oil subsidy regime; blaming it for the high-level poverty in our country and counseled Nigerians to be guided by their conscience in electing leaders in the 2019 general elections.

“Asiwaju, in criticizing the Buhari administration held rightly that “too much political and economic power resides in the hands of too few. This result in a society described by too much of unemployment, inadequate infrastructure, too little food, yet too much poverty,” he said.

“He added that under President Buhari, “rather than becoming a joyous nation, Nigeria has become a cruel playground where the fears and concerns of the average person get exploited but their interests never get promoted.”

“The PDP therefore lambasts Asiwaju Tinubu for making allusion to its determination with Nigerians to retrieve Atiku Abubakar’s stolen Presidential mandate at the court, adding that no amount of blackmail can detract from this resolve.

“The party cautioned Asiwaju Tinubu to call himself to order, particularly as Nigerians, including members of his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, have seen through his power-grabbing antics and are now determined to give him the back seat treatment.”

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