The ruling All Progressives Congress has said that the Peoples Democratic Party will not hold the reins of governance at the centre in Nigeria for a long time.
The APC stressed that the PDP would remain in opposition longer than imagined.
The APC Publicity Secretary in Lagos State, Mr. Joe Igbokwe, argued that the PDP had all the chance to have taken the nation to greater heights when it was in power for 16 years, but that it frittered the opportunity away.
APC is on a mission and no amount of blackmail can derail the party
Igbokwe spoke against the backdrop of the death wish expressed for the APC by a former governorship aspirant of the PDP in Delta State, Sunny Onuesoke.
The PDP chieftain had said that the APC would collapse before the 2019 elections, considering the series of crises now rocking the ruling party.
But speaking in an exclusive interview with our correspondent, Igbokwe said those wishing the APC dead were doing so because they did not understand what the party represented and the structures it had built over time.
He said, “When we first started out, people said the party was a collection of ‘strange bed fellows’ and as such we would not last more than a year. But here we are today, still waxing stronger. The death wish being expressed in some quarters is a mere wishful thinking that only exists in the figment of the imagination of haters of our party and no amount of death wish can make our party go down because the APC is built on sound political philosophy.
“The APC is on a mission and no amount of blackmail can derail the party from its focus of delivering the dividends of democracy. The party has duly imbibed the culture of internal democracy in its operations such that people can argue and iron out their political differences and this has made us stronger as a party.”
The Lagos APC spokesperson, however, described the PDP as a bunch of “congenital, shameless and unrepentant treasury looters,” who robbed the nation blind, adding that instead of hiding their face in shame for the grave havoc wrought on the nation by their party’s 16 years of misrule, all they could wish the ruling party was evil.
“We are still battling to repair the colossal damage done to the nation by the massive looting of the treasury and heavy pillaging that took place when the PDP held sway. The nation has not recovered from the unprecedented fleecing of the treasury under the PDP. So, I expect them to be quiet and bury their heads in shame,” he said.
Igbokwe argued that the APC and, indeed, all Nigerians had not forgiven the PDP for its reckless looting of public funds when the party was in power, in spite of its recent apology to the nation for its past misdeeds.
He added that the party should not only apologise to the nation, it should refund all stolen monies in its coffers to the national treasury.