APC, PDP trade words over Atiku’s candidature

The All Progressives Congress (APC) said yesterday that the office of Nigeria’s president is not for sale.

It specifically chided PDP’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, for allegedly paying delegates a lot of money to get their votes.

But the PDP had fired back, saying the APC was already jittery with the emergence of Atiku ahead of the 2019 contest.

The APC said in a statement by its acting National Publicity Secretary, Mr Yekini Nabena, that Atiku was known as “A super-rich Nigerian who entrenched the undemocratic practice of buying votes of delegates.”

Nabena, who nonetheless congratulated the Atiku on his election as the PDP 2019 presidential candidate, however, said that Nigerians would consider the background of candidates before taking decision during elections.

“The pertinent question to ask about Atiku is what his scorecard in public office was? Regrettably, Atiku’s scorecard is abysmally low and he has proven to be an untrustworthy and unreliable character. A case in point is Atiku’s revealing altercation with his former boss President Olusegun Obasanjo,” the statement said.

The PDP on its part dispelled allegations that the Port Harcourt event was characterised by vote buying.

“The claims by APC of votebuying at our national convention, is therefore not only false but completely unfounded and symptomatic of a party that has totally lost bearing and now engaged in rumour mongering.

“However, for us as a party, such allegation from the APC is not unexpected given that it had tried everything possible to scuttle our national convention and presidential primary but woefully failed, hence the desperation to engage in attempt to discredit the process that has been acclaimed as the best in our political history.

“Unlike the APC that has an unpopular presidential candidate, who has failed in governance, foisted on it without an election, the whole world watched with excitement as 12 aspirants contested the PDP presidential primary, where delegates drawn from respected Nigerians across the country, freely voted for a candidate of their choice,” the PDP said.