Presidential Campaign Documents: APC, PDP in war of words over action plans
…Atiku’s manifesto filled with Buhari’s ongoing projects — APC
…All projects claimed by APC were our initiatives – PDP
…Says ruling party can’t take Nigeria out of doom
By Joel Oladele-Abuja
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have engaged in war of words over the policy document containing the action plans of their candidates.
The APC Presidential Campaign Council lampooned the presidential candidate of the opposition, PDP, for accusing his APC counterpart, Bola Tinubu of plagiarism with respect to the latter’s recently unveiled 80-page manifesto.
According to the APC, the PDP’s 74-page campaign document is nothing but an itemisation of ongoing projects of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Minister of Labour and Employment and Chief Spokesperson of the APC PCC, Mr Festus Keyamo SAN in a statement said it appears the PDP is unaware that Nigerians have since dismissed it as an unserious and broken opposition party.
“If nothing at all, its latest press release signed by Chief Dele Momodu attests to its crass unseriousness,” he stated.
Keyamo noted that the 5-point agenda of the flag bearer of the PDP is nothing to write home about.
“Top on the list is his lip service to unify Nigeria. We can only laugh. This is a man whose party is torn between division and disarray. Now, he is yet to fix it. What a failure!
“His 74-page campaign document has in it ongoing milestones of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration. From lifting millions out of poverty to power generation to economic revitalization, it is clear that they are either too lazy to think or bereft of fresh ideas.
“Everywhere Atiku went, he was never caught speaking to issues of governance. Rather, if he is not promising the Igbo Presidency in 2027, he is playing the ethnic card (like in Kaduna). Nigerians are wise, they know he has nothing to offer,” the APC added.
Keyamo added that PDP’s attempt to pooh-pooh Tinubu’s Action Plan only ended up as nothing but a joke.
He said APC’s expectation is that its action plan would inspire other political parties, especially the intellectually bankrupt PDP, to engage it constructively on the initiatives and programmes it intends to implement.
“True to type, PDP has again reacted, in our view, without even reading the content on the document. All they are interested in is the title of our message, not the quality of our ideas. We are extremely amused, but not entirely shocked. This only demonstrates once again their incurable incapacity to act as a credible opposition to the ruling party.
“Dele Momodu should have rather stayed in his accustomed lane of praise-singing socialites and the likes instead of dabbling in the more demanding job of critiquing policy statements. It is clearly not his forte! The quality of his recent write-up is a testament that his team is not made up of experts in governance and policy formulation. He must have gathered his team of photographers and video editors to read through a document that is far beyond their tabloid-centered minds.
“One would have expected Dele Momodu to make clear comparative analyses between Hope ‘93 campaign document of MKO Abiola and the Renewed Hope document of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He goofed miserably. He was just huffing and puffing without substance. A write-up that was intended to be a critique of a document on its supposed lack of details ended up as an empty shell.
“Dele Momodu has lived in Lagos for more than three decades. He surely knows the state of Lagos pre and post-1999. He has praised, on many occasions and at different fora, the imperishable legacies and monumental milestones of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu in Lagos.
“In the same piece, Momodu narrated how Asiwaju Tinubu began the “systematic and robust increase of Lagos’ Internally Generated Revenue, making the state one of the richest self-sustaining governments in Africa”, and how “he single-handled (sic) revived and revamped Local Governments in Lagos and brought developments to practically every part of the state.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is known for “his glittering records and achievements in both private and public sectors.
“Can Dele Momodu also say this about his principal, Atiku Abubakar, whose time as Vice President has no other legacy to be remembered for other than the failed privatization exercise he was assigned to supervise where he sold national assets to his friends and cronies for peanuts? Should we remind you, Dele Momodu, of the distasteful remarks made by former President Olusegun Obasanjo on your party’s flag-bearer as Vice President?
“Of course, track records should be critical in evaluating any party or candidate. If we may ask Dele Momodu, what are your party’s track records? When the country had substantial receipts from crude oil export, your party squandered it all. PDP represents what the Yoruba proverbially call “Arungun” (squanderer). They promised the people the South-East Second Niger Bridge for 16 years, yet, nothing was built. Today, thanks to President Muhammadu Buhari of APC, the Second Niger Bridge is completed. At a time, a former Spokesperson of your government said Nigeria couldn’t afford train coaches, and much fewer rail lines.
“Today, we have Lagos – Ibadan, and Itakpe – Warri rail lines. Even in the face of dwindling resources and global economic challenges, we have lifted millions of Nigerians out of poverty with our National Social Investment Programs, widely acclaimed as the first in Africa in scale and innovation. Nigeria has become a sufficient rice-growing nation, rated highest in rice and sorghum production in Africa by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), a status PDP thought was impossible,” Keyamo added.
The APC campaign Spokesman noted that Dele Momodu and his party failed woefully to point out a single example of the copy-and-paste he referred to in the press statement released by him.
“It was expected that he would have cited one example of an original document from which we copied and the portion in particular. In all, his press release is just juvenile prose, bereft of details and substance, full of highfalutin nonsense and signifying nothing,” he said.
….All projects claimed by APC were our initiatives – PDP
Reacting, the main opposition, the PDP, has fired back at the ruling party stating that all projects claimed by it were initiatives of its party while in government, maintaining that the ruling APC has led the Country into a doom it can’t redeem it from.
Kola Ologbondiyan, the immediate past National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while reacting to the statement by the Minister of Labour and Employment and Chief Spokesperson of the APC PCC, Mr Festus Keyamo SAN, said the APC should be ashamed of even coming out to campaign after failing Nigerians in all areas for over seven years.
According to him, all the projects APC now claim to have completed were initiated by PDP’s administration, adding that, right under their watch, the economy has degenerated so much that an average Nigerian now finds it difficult to survive.
In a chat with NewsDirect, he assured it’s only the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar who has what it takes to rescue the country.
His words, “If someone is claiming that Buhari is doing fine in economy, if he had listed indices, we will challenge him on the basis of indices. How much was the cost of a car before 2015 and how much is it now? What was the cost of a bag of rice before? it was between N8,000 and N10,000. Today, under the APC Government, a bag of rice is N40,000 or more.
“So, if Keyamo is talking about economy, what’s he talking about? If you want to talk about the dollar, they inherited dollar at the rate of N158 or thereabout. How much is dollar now? 720 Naira.
“There is no project that Buhari government is doing that didn’t start under the Peoples Democratic Party and I challenge them to just mention one project that APC initiated since they came in over seven years ago.
“They can’t, they have failed. All the projects they claim they executed are the projects they inherited from PDP, including the 2nd Niger Bridge.
“There is one road around my place here, they inherited it from Jonathan, they have been on it for the past 7 years and they have not finished it. Or is it international Airport in Abuja that they just went and put flowers and commissioned, or is it the railway station, which one?” He queried.
Reacting to another issue raised by Keyamo that Alhaji Atiku cannot unify Nigeria since he has not been able to resolve the crises rocking his party, Ologbondiyan said, “how did he know whether PDP is unified or not? Is he a member of PDP? Does he know the efforts going on within the party to reconcile people?
“The fact that there is a disagreement in one sector, does it mean the whole sector has collapsed? Nigerians who rally round Atiku Abubakar know fully well he’s the only one amongst other presidential candidates, including Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who can unify the country. Atiku is the only one that anywhere you go, he has built friendship. He has relationship, he’s got the experience, others don’t have any relationship outside their region.
“Leave Keyamo alone, he doesn’t know what he’s taking about. Ask Keyamo, the phone he’s holding today that he’s using to drop all these messages that he’s passing to the public, It was as a result of privatization that he’s able to use that phone. Before that privatization that Atiku supervised, he didn’t even have a phone in his house and couldn’t afford the cost of a land line.
“I’m in a position today to also remind him that because Atiku Abubakar presided over privatization policy, that’s why he can afford to have a mobile line. Atiku has never hidden his interest in Public-Private partnerships (PPPs) and he has always said that the best way is for government to create an enabling environment that will make private investments to thrive, he has never hidden it.
“In 2019, he said that look, the way the refinery is, let us privatize it. Keyamo was amongst the people saying no, no, he wants to sell it to his friends, he want to steal it. Today, have they not declared NNPC, a public enterprise? As we speak today, is the country benefiting, are they not remitting zero Naira to the Federation account?
“When they came in, Nigeria’s refinery was producing around 1.9 million barrel per day. Since they came in, despite their promise to build one refinery per year which they failed to fulfill, they cannot optimally get our existing refineries to produce at maximum limit and as at today, it has dwindled to 900,000 barrel per day from 1.9 million they inherited.
“I don’t want to talk much about the past, I want to be futuristic and what do I see in the future? The APC can’t take us out of the doom they brought us. Even their candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is only speaking to general terms, he’s not specific.
“Asiwaju has been campaigning for restructuring since he has been in politics, he brought a government to office, he could not work on them to restructure. Today, Asiwaju is running away from State Police, he can not discuss it just because he wants to win election. He’s running away from restructuring. So, you cannot believe whatever they are saying in APC, don’t believe them and that’s why Nigerians refer to them as All Promises Cancelled,” Ologbondiyan said.
