BY MAYOWA SAMUEL
The Peoples Democratic Party has said that it will form the next government at the centre by defeating the ruling All Progressives Congress. The party asserted that the APC would lose the next round of general elections in the country not because of the current internal crises ravaging it but essentially because it has failed to deliver good governance to Nigerians since it came to power in 2015.
The Lagos PDP Publicity Secretary, Barrister Toafeek Gani disclosed this to The Point while weighing his party’s chances of winning the forthcoming 2023 elections amid the internal scuffle in the APC.
The PDP spokesman for Lagos expressed certainty that the ruling party’s poor leadership and their administration’s inability to cater for the masses will count against them in 2023 as the electorate won’t repeat the mistake of re-electing them into power.
Gani said, “It’s too obvious that what’s inevitable is the defeat of APC in 2023. It’s already a done deal. The APC can only get votes from perhaps 50 percent of its own members and maybe those who don’t know about what everyone is going through in this country.
“It’s unfortunate that even those who supported President Muhammadu Buhari are against his government now. They are tired of all the killing, maiming, kidnapping people and the rest. They’ve not given reason to anybody to believe in them or President Buhari. All these are from the fact that the APC was never prepared for governance. The APC is home and dry as a loser.”
He added that “The truth of the matter is that the totality of the APC leadership at the local government level, state level, ward level, national level, do not have what it takes to take Nigeria out of where they’ve put us now. If they had come into the government as sincere people with the mind to serve the people and to administer the country well, and not with a vindictive mindset, we would not be here.
“They’ve destroyed democracy and put us 30 years behind. If they reconcile today and get even better than they were in 2015, they’ll still lose because nobody in the country or in the diaspora, will ever think of voting for APC again
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“But they pursued vendetta and left governance. So, the disharmony, the acrimony, the unsteady state of the APC caretaker committee today, and the many factions they have produced in each state wouldn’t be the reason why Nigerians will reject them at the next round of general elections in 2023, they will be rejected by Nigerians because the party has failed woefully to meet the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians. It failed to take Nigeria beyond where it met it. They will lose 2023 because of their failure to give Nigerians security, education, good economy, and nationhood.
“They’ve destroyed democracy and put us 30 years behind. If they reconcile today and get even better than they were in 2015, they’ll still lose because nobody in the country or in the diaspora, will ever think of voting for APC again.
Gani also reacted to the plea to Nigerians by Kaduna State governor, Nasir el-Rufai that they should not vote for the PDP come 2023 as they will take the country backward. He described el-Rufai’s plea as a sign of jitters that they might lose the election.
“If you heard el-Rufai recently, he was not even campaigning for APC, he was rather getting too personal. He said people shouldn’t vote for PDP in 2023, this is because they are manifesting the jitters, they are already jittery and the only reason why Nigeria should be concerned now is not that the APC will lose, it’s whether the APC will lose gallantly,” he stated.
Accusing the APC of denting the image of the country and the then president, Goodluck Jonathan, he said, “I make bold to say that the insecurity we have now was because majority of them were part and parcel of that insecurity then, to create bad image for the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan. Unfortunately for them, they can’t quell it any longer. They were part and parcel of the insurrection, Boko Haram, banditry, kidnapping and the blackmail of the PDP and Nigeria then.
“When Nigeria was to get those Tucano jets from the U.S, an APC delegation went to the U.S., U.N, and other world organisations, supported by some disgruntled so-called human rights activists, to go tell those persons that President Goodluck Jonathan was going to use those Tucano jets to level the North and the opposition. Today, Nigeria is worse in insecurity, and the same people went back to get those Tucano jets.
“It was politics of vendetta, it was in bad faith that they came into governance. They were too desperate and they did everything to demonise the country. They are now suffering from what they actually sowed because it’s difficult for them to begin to say that some of those things they said were lies and the people should not believe those things again, it’s not possible,” he stressed further.
