Here’s a press statement from Tinubu’s media office.
With the election less than three weeks away and the outcome
possibly against them, the Goodluck Jonathan Presidency and the hardliners in
the PDP have embarked on a new strategy to put brake on the momentum APC
presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari seems to be gathering.
This strategy is novel and seems to be the outcome of a
desperate calculation in that the PDP has shifted its attention from the APC in
order to attack on multiple fronts the former governor of Lagos state and APC
national leader, Bola Tinubu.
From what can be gathered through informed sources, the PDP
and Jonathan Presidency had recently tried to fracture the APC by offering
Tinubu the position of vice President in an interim government if he would
agree to part company with the popular Buhari.
Once Tinubu rebuffed the offer to participate in the interim
scheme, the presidency decided to change tactics. It would no longer try to
entice Tinubu with sugar but would now move to silence and if necessary
neutralize him.
The APC National leader has caused President Jonathan’s team
countless headaches this campaign season, his declining the interim government
offer is just the latest. The Jonathan government sees Tinubu as the linchpin
of the APC and its successful electoral strategy.
They also consider him one of the government’s most prolific
and able critics due to his longstanding and often strident critiques of
Jonathan government policies, from economic development to national security.
More to the point, they blame him as the man who is most
responsible for placing them in their current electoral quandary.
They believe without Tinubu’s efforts the successful merger
of the political parties into the All Progressives Congress, APC, would not
have occurred and they would not be facing possible defeat at the hands of this
new party.
The PDP faces its stiffest competition ever in 16 years and
the person they blame the most is Tinubu, the major actor who is seen as the
strategic mind of the new party and one person who must be stopped at all cost.
General Buhari has since been penciled down for similar character assassination
and vicious insults alongside other leaders of the APC.
The agenda to tackle Bola Tinubu and weaken his political
influence nationwide and to undermine his leadership in South Western politics
can be said to have gone into overdrive.
The first part of the strategy is to dredge previously
discredited claims of illicit wealth in hopes of silencing Tinubu or lessening
his public image. However, they fear this public relations attack may be too
soft as Tinubu has been taken before the ICPC and the case against him
dismissed. If this attack does not deter his party activities, the presidency
and PDP are prepared to take more drastic action if they believe it necessary
to win the election by throwing the APC into disarray.
This part of the plot has two options, the first of which is
to employ trained snipers to attack Tinubu or assassinate him out rightly. This
plan is consistent with the warning made by former President Obasanjo in his
now famous 2014 letter to President Jonathan. Those within the PDP favouring
this approach argue that when Chief Bola Ige, a powerful politician was
murdered, heavens did not fall even though the then President was a Yoruba man.
The second option more crafty. The PDP will seek to resuscitate the case of the
murder of Funso Williams a former Lagos gubernatorial candidate by blaming
Tinubu for the killing.
They are already coaching inmates and others. They are
offering them the promise of early release and money if they will make
statements implicating Tinubu in the Williams murder. The presidency intends to
rush through this process with the hope of putting Tinubu out of circulation by
trapping him in a contrived criminal process until the elections are over. Tinubu
is not taking these revelations lightly knowing well the capacity of this
government for devilish acts.
For the party that boasts it will rule Nigeria for 60 years,
it has become an unexpected season of political desperation. The PDP is worried
that on March 28, they will discover that they have fallen 44 years short of
their dynastic goal. By all accounts, this has caused them to consider very
drastic plots and schemes.
Nigerians are confronted with a ruling party willing to
descend to the lowest in order to win elections. Perceived political enemies
are being hunted. Trumped-up allegations are being manufactured daily from the
government factory of lies to taint the leading figures in the All Progressives
Party, APC.
Tinubu Media Office
Press Statement
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