Sani
Tukur/Premium Times
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Lai
Mohammed
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The People’s
Democratic Party, PDP, in a ridiculing tone, Tuesday, said the newly
formed All Progressives Congress, APC, is an illusion and its leaders
‘politically naïve’. The ruling party lambasted the APC
leaders saying they left out something as basic as registering their name and
that their APC will not exist, as the acronym has already been taken.
The ruling party described the APC’s
publicity as “the hallmark of political naivety, painlessness and a foreboding
that the Party will drive Nigeria to socio-political and economic brink should
it be entrusted with power”.
The party also chastised the leadership
of the new party for failing to “dully reserve or register the proposed name of
their party before embarking on bleeping jamboree and propaganda”.
The statement
In a statement by the National
Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, the party said the reality on the
ground has shown that the leaders of the APC have been grandstanding while “the
first chapter of their history was yet to be successfully written”.
“Nigerians are here confronted with an
irony! It is an irony of a political party who without adequate planning,
without a solid working rhythm, yet wishes to be entrusted to its effete, shaky
shoulders, the fate of over One Hundred and Sixty Million Nigerians,” Mr. Metuh
said in the statement.
“How can a group who could not conclude
the basic as in due registration of its name be able to manage the affairs of
Nigeria at this moment of critical challenge?”
The PDP said the parties that formed
the APC have displayed their penchant for arrogance and deceit.
It accused members of the new party of
lying when it claimed that some PDP governors and National Assembly members
were planning to join them.
“How can a politician worth his onions
leave a known, formidable and nationwide political party for a disparate and
unregistered amalgam?” the party asked. “This false claim is also a window into
the minds of the leaders of the coalition. The summary is that they are waiting
for decampees from the PDP to build their party, perhaps, register it for them.
What an illusion! What a self delusion!”
INEC’s stance
Kayode Idowu, the spokesperson of
Attahiru Jega, the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, issued a
statement last week stating that a party called the African Peoples Congress,
which shares an acronym with the newly formed All Progressives Congress, has
applied to INEC for registration; thereby foreclosing the possibility of
registering the All Progressives congress.
This greatly angered the opposition
with the individual parties that make up the All Progressives Congress
threatening brimstone. The party was formed by the merger of the Action
Congress of Nigeria, ACN; All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP; the Congress for
Progressive Change, CPC; and a faction of the All Progressive Grand Alliance,
APGA. Already, the new party has 11 state governors, second only to the PDP.
A stalwart of the CPC and former
minister of the Abuja, Nasir El-Rufai said “Any attempt not to register the APC
will attract the anger of the Nigerian people. APC has become a mass movement
of people who are fed up with bad governance”.
INEC’s claim, false
Also, the spokesperson of the ACN, Lai
Mohammed, Tuesday, issued a statement describing the position of Mr. Idowu as a
lie.
Mr. Mohammed said the claim by the
electoral body as postulated by Mr. Idowu is not supported by INEC’s laws, as
articulated by the relevant sections of the Electoral Act regulating the
registration of a political party.
It said the truth of the matter is that
no party today with the acronym APC has applied to INEC to be registered,
adding that even the phantom African Peoples Congress, APC, which is being
sponsored by the PDP to lay claim to the acronym – has only written a letter of
intent, which has not even been discussed by INEC, not to talk of the
commission taking any decision on it.
“The statement credited to Mr. Idowu is
therefore reckless and provocative and clearly betrays INEC as truly having
merged with the PDP to frustrate the merger of the progressives under the
banner of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC). One wonders who the spokesman
is speaking for and what interest he represents. He should therefore be called
to order before he sets the country ablaze,” the ACN said.
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