From Leon Usigbe, Abuja
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, on Sunday, warned Nigerians that a vote for the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, will represent a transition from frying pan to fire.
The admonition is contained in a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, which warned that citizens must not be deceived by Tinubu’s message of renewed hope as it is “hopelessness in disguise.”
With the election less than a week away the statement said: “Your hope will be stolen from you if he is allowed to govern Nigeria. That indeed will be a state of hopelessness – hell on earth, frying pan to fire.”
It recalled that as part of the grand deception, Tinubu, who started his campaign mid last year with a promise to continue with President Muhammadu Buhari’s “impeccable legacy,” has in the last three weeks been promising to reverse them.
Atiku asked Tinubu to make up his mind on whether he was running on Buhari’s legacy or running against it so as not to deceive innocent voters.
The main opposition candidate added, “Tinubu says the petrol scarcity and the naira shortage are aimed at scuttling his ambition. Later, he and his acolytes said they were only voicing out against the policy out of sheer concern for the masses. These are people who never muttered a word when students spent 10 months at home in 2020 and eight months at home in 2022 due to unprecedented university lecturers’ strike.
“These are people that never criticised the President at the height of the insecurity when schoolchildren were being abducted almost on a daily basis and when the naira witnessed a free fall that led to a sharp increase in the price of goods.”
The statement added: “Someone needs to tell Tinubu and his band of APC governors to please give up this irritating ostentatious performance of moral propriety. They are not angry about the naira redesign because they love the masses. They are only angry that their plan to unleash bullion vans on poor Nigerians has been thwarted.”
It said should Tinubu become the president of Nigeria, he will turn the country into his personal fiefdom and a one party state by muzzling the opposition as he had done in Lagos since 1999, adding that Tinubu would also turn the National Assembly into his foot stool and orchestrate the fall of the 4th Republic.
The statement further pointed out: “Tinubu has turned Lagos State into his personal fiefdom by arrogating all powers to himself so much so that even the current Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, publicly refers to him as ‘my principal’, clear evidence that Tinubu is far above the constitutionally recognised authority in the state.”
