From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has described his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Atiku Abubakar, as Nigeria’s worst enemy.
Tinubu also argued that the current sabotage of the Naira notes swap and fuel scarcity that have caused untold hardship to millions of Nigerians across the country revealed the true character of PDP pesidential candidate as public enemy number one.
Asiwaju, in statement signed by Bayo Onanuga, Director, Media and Publicity, APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), said that it takes a visiting president candidate resident in Dubai not to feel the pains of the suffering Nigerians.
“Nigerians will recall that since the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) introduced its current cash-limit and new Naira notes swap policies, Atiku and PDP maintained opportunistic silence with the hope they will benefit from the discomfort the policies will create for Nigerians and the resentment they will generate for the ruling APC,” the former Lagos state governor noted.
Lambasting the former Vice President further, the APC PCC wrote that; “while Atiku and PDP were in bed with the saboteurs and fifth columnists among the operators of Money Deposit Banks and oil marketers who created the current logjam to force the outcome of the February 25 presidential election in favour of the former Vice President, our candidate Bola Tinubu courageously pitched his tent with the poor masses who have been most negatively impacted by the antics of these evil doers.
“Having realised they have lost the initiative and their antics exposed to Nigerians by Tinubu at the APC Presidential Campaign rally in Abeokuta, Atiku made a half-hearted appeal to CBN to ‘slightly’ extend the deadline for the currency swap.
“We are currently at a loss to understand what informed the current call of Atiku on CBN not to extend the February 10 deadline despite the unmitigated hardship still being faced by many Nigerians who could not meet their basic daily needs as a result of lack of cash from banks and the empty ATM machines.
“Any one who lives in Nigeria and not Dubai and visits banks and ATM locations will feel sad that the CBN is making our people suffer for its badly timed Naira swap policy.
“The bank’s latest fire brigade approach in approving payment of N20,000 at the counter is far from offering relief as queues are still long, agony and frustrations widening, an invitation to riots.
“This poorly implemented policy has turned Nigerians to destitutes because they cannot access their own money in their bank accounts. People cannot get money to give their kids to school or pay for daily needs at corner shops, fruit shops, including buying newspapers. Transactions in market places have plummeted.
“People are not getting the new notes to spend, thus triggering the huge anger in the land against Emefiele.
We thus find it ludicrous that a man who joined the call for an extension of the deadline last week is championing a new campaign against further extension because he feels the suffering of Nigerians will serve his own political end to become president at all cost.
“In passing off the suffering of our people as “Little inconvenience”, Atiku only comes across as a political leader disconnected from the Nigerian people that he is campaigning to govern. Certainly, living comfortably in Dubai for many years has drained Atiku of all empathy.
This is a man who wants to be President and does not mind even if he presides over the graves of Nigerians as long as his inordinate ambition materialises in line with the prophecy of his marabouts.
It is crystal clear to every Nigerian of conscience now that Atiku and PDP do not mean well for our country. PDP and Atiku have become desperadoes who will wish calamity on the country as long as it makes them win an election they are destined to lose, spectacularly,” they noted in the statement.