2019: Atiku abandons policy documents to divert attention – APC

As the 2019 general election approaches and politicking much on ground, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Presidential Candidate of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of abandoning his policy document, spreading fake news as campaign to divert attention. Atiku towards the end of 2018 launched his policy document titled: ‘Let’s Get Nigeria Working Again,’ listing human capital development, job creation, poverty eradication and infrastructural development as the corner stone of his economic policy, if elected president. The ruling party, APC on Tuesday however noted that instead of using the dictates of the document to campaign, he has resorted to churning out lies and making false claims of corruption in the President Muhammadu Buhari led government, saying the present administration is doing all that Atiku is promising to do. The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Lanre Issa- Onilu, in a press conference in Abuja on new year day said PDP’s Dubai-made strategy has collapsed like a pack of card and their plan to recreate the 2014/2015 scenario when APC pilloried them for their crimes which woken the electorate to the reality of the disaster Nigerians were headed under the PDP government has failed. He said: “PDP, led by their discredited presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar paid huge sums of money to some foreign ‘con men’ in Dubai who posed as strategists. They began to spurn daily fake news and make spurious and unsubstantiated allegations against our President, the family members of our President, the Vice President, the APC national chairman, notable government officials, and public institutions to deceive Nigerians. “Their strategists did not tell them that such would not work when the allegations cannot be proven. Unlike in 2015 when the APC allegations were based on facts, which have been validated by revelations upon revelations of heist committed during the inglorious 16 years of PDP rule, the opposition’s disgraceful recourse to false alarm as a campaign strategy this time is a wrong approach. Facts are sacred. Falsehood, no matter how fleet-footed, would be overtaken by the truth in no time”. Issa-Onilu also lamented that, “the year 2018 particularly was a tough year for the APC government as we had to confront the monsters who have found their way into the ruling party during the merger in 2014, pretending to have cured themselves of their insatiable greed and callous selfish disposition. “These enemies of our country found out that the beats have changed and their strenuous efforts to steer the APC administration towards their ignominious ways, as they practiced under the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), had become impossible under President Buhari. Predictably, the forces of evil finally gravitated towards themselves and are now ensconced in their wicked nest, called the PDP. “Unfortunately, they did a lot of damage to our determined efforts in the last three and half years, by constituting themselves into a stumbling-block, using their vantage position in government in conjunction with their associates outside of government who have been deploying their ill-gotten wealth to pervert justice, create a state of insecurity, propagate falsehood and promote dissent. It was a callous strategy design to pull the wool over the eyes of the people of this country. As frustrating as their activities were in 2018, they met more than their match in President Muhammadu Buhari”, he stated. Tom Okpe, Àbuja