APC to PDP: You cannot win 2019 polls

The ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) has said the embattled leading opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), is only joking as it cannot win the 2019 general election despite the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Ahmed Makarfi led faction of the party, Wednesday last week.

The PDP had ruled the country for 16 years and was voted out by the electorate through a protest vote won by the opposition after its merger in the general election of 2015 thereby installing the incumbent administration.

The national caretaker committee Chairman of the people’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmed Makarfi had said in its caucus and expanded executive meeting in Abuja on Monday that; “if the party sustains its current momentum, it will only take a miracle for it not to win back the presidency in 2019; all we need to do is close ranks and work hard to realize the target”.

In reaction, the spokesman of the ruling APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi said, “We had dismissed Makarfi’s statement as part of the excitement that followed a favorable court ruling. However, since that Wednesday verdict, we noticed that several of his supporters and party members have expressed similar sentiment. We therefore feel the need to respond appropriately.

“We want Nigerians, not just the PDP, to hold us accountable for every promise contained in our manifesto. We only urge them to be fair. A manifesto is not a four-year program. If PDP had fully implemented its manifesto in the 16 years that it was in power, Nigerians would not have been attracted to the APC promise of change in 2015, because there would have been little left to promise”.

A report by a national newspaper on Saturday, July 15 2017 quoted a former minister of the PDP who did not want his name in print for fear of a backlash from the current administration as he is presently facing prosecution by the anti-graft agency, compared the PDP and the APC to a tale of two wives saying, “Nigerians have tried the two and seen which is better”.

The PDP had been engrossed with in-house fight for position with two factions; one led by Ali Modu Sheriff and the other by Senator Ahmed Makarfi whom the Supreme Court has affirmed as the authentic chairman of the party.