By Chidozie Dikachi, Abuja
As the Presidential election inches closer, the Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization on Tuesday urged Nigerians to use the February 25, 2023 Presidential election as an opportunity to deal the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its Presidential Candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a devastating electoral punch for the anguish, pain, sufferings, mass killings and untold hardships they visited on Nigerians in the almost eight years of the APC calamitous administration.
In a statement by its Spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan, the Campaign Organisation urged Nigerians to repay the APC with a humiliating defeat for its wickedness by voting enmasse for the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who according to the statement, embodies the hope for a new lease of life in our country.
“Our campaign stresses that Nigerians cannot afford to gloss over the horrible experiences which they have been made to endure in almost eight years of APC, the administration which Tinubu claimed to have unilaterally foisted upon our country.
“Nigerians should approach the ballot box with a determination to repay the APC and Tinubu for the devastation they caused our country by opening her to terrorists and marauders to kill and maim our compatriots, rape our women and took Nigerians into slavery in their own country; the APC took pleasure in watching the killing of innocent Nigerians, including the massacre of our youths during the EndSars Protest of October 2020; the APC also turned our nation into a large killing field, brought a near fascist regime and foisted a terrible siege mentality on the people”.
It called on Nigerians to go to the presidential election with the consciousness of how insensitive, corrupt and incompetent APC pillaged our national patrimony, turned its revenues generating agencies into their cash cows, wrecked the once robust economy which was hitherto rated as one of the fastest growing in the world, ruined the productive sectors, took away jobs from the youths and turned the nation into the poverty capital of the world, where over 100 million Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life.
“Our citizens must remember how the APC plundered our national treasury, imposed policies that ruined the value of our Naira, imposed heavy taxes and unjustified increase in tariffs for essential goods and services, triggered astronomical rise in the cost of food and indispensable commodities, reduced the purchasing power of citizens, unimaginably turned industrious Nigerians to beggars and brought so much anguish that Nigerians resorted to suicide and slavery mission abroad as options.
The Atiku/Okowa Campaign urged Nigerians to bear in mind how corrupt APC leaders pillaged the petroleum sector, through very fraudulent subsidy regime and criminal increase in pump price of fuel through which trillions of naira meant for developmental needs; healthcare, education, security, housing, employment and critical infrastructure were diverted to APC interests and including cronies.
“Nigerians must on February 25 remember that the APC and Tinubu are responsible for the hunger, starvation and devastation in the land.
“Under the PDP, a liter of fuel which sold at N97 now sells between N400 to N500 in many parts of the country, a bag of rice which sold for N8000 now sells for N40,000 and above, a measure of beans which sold at N250, now sells for N1000, a measure of garri which sold for about N100 now sells for N450 and above, a liter of kerosine which sold for N150 now sells for above N1000 a liter, a bottle of palm oil which sold for N300 now sells for N1,200 under APC anti-people policies” the opposition party said.
The campaign reminded Nigerians to note that Tinubu has nothing to offer and it accounts for his inability to debate or engage with Nigerians all through his rowdy campaigns.
Our campaign therefore called on Nigerians, including those whose loved ones fell victim of the mindless killings, those maimed as victims of rape, kidnap and arson attacks, those whose families gave up on life and took the supreme option, those suffering all forms of social dislocations occasioned by the compromising of national security by the APC; those whose jobs and means of livelihood were taken away; families who cannot afford their daily meals as well as all Nigerians who are suffering one form of anguish or the other because of the misrule of the APC to stand up, unite and resist the APC by voting for Atiku Abubakar on February 25, 2023.
