March 28, (THEWILL) – President Muhammadu Buhari has formally congratulated the Abdullahi Adamu-led 79-member National Executive Committee (NEC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC), that emerged at the just concluded convention in Abuja, saying that the unity of members put on display puts the party on a firmer footing for victory in the 2023 general elections.
The President, who returned to the Convention ground at the Eagle Square, Sunday morning, along with the Vice President and the Senate President, to witness and celebrate the inauguration of the elected party executives, remarked that the smooth conduct of the election raises the prospect of a mouth-watering APC victory next year.
“The APC Convention hosted this weekend sets the scene for an APC victory in the presidential and general elections next year. It is a victory over naysayers, who believed the party was divided, but are now disappointed.
“It is equally a victory for the president, who has ensured unity across all party positions; and it is a victory for the voters of Nigeria, who can now be assured of a smooth succession to new leadership in 2023.
“What the Convention made clear was how the media has been peddling fake news of division, when the hard reality of unity, cohesion, and indeed personal warmth between members of the party’s leaders – incoming and outgoing – was evident for all to see.
“Of course, the blame for this mindset ought rightly to go to the opposition, who in all these years had done the work to only divide the country, leading to all manner of separatist agitations. But this is not the wish, nor is it in the character of the citizens, as was clear for everyone to see at the Eagle Square.
“When their fake news of disunity was undone by the facts, some in the opposition could not help themselves, but take to the newspapers and the airwaves to find another way to shore up their reputations.
“That some of the APC’s new leadership were once in the opposition was the new line to take to the media, somehow suggesting that those who have left one party should not hold positions in another. Yet, do the Scriptures not teach us of the virtue of sinners who repent and change their ways?
“What the Scriptures say less is of sinners who repent, change their tune, and then choose to re-sin in full public view by returning to their former ways. Given that most important leaders of the opposition PDP first left the party before they returned to it, we might expect the media to ensure criticism of them is damning and absolute. It is incredulous that anyone would consider them trustworthy or acceptable candidates for any public office.
“The stage is now set for the APC primary elections later this year, when the party’s new flag bearers will emerge. No doubt some will attempt to argue the impossible – that an APC primary election is a source of division, while an opposition primary election is a source of consensus.
“But the good voters of Nigeria can see through such acrobatics and know the facts that, when the contests for 2023 come, APC offers a track record of success and leadership, while the opposition has only decades of failure and complicity in response”, President Buhari said in a statement issued on Sunday by Garba Shehu, his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity.
The statement followed remarks by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which berated the APC over the imposition of Sen. Abdullahi Adamu, a man, who was arraigned in Court on 149-count charge of alleged fraudulent award of contracts and stealing of public funds estimated at N15 billion, as its National Chairman.
The PDP, had in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, described the APC jamboree in the name of a National Convention as a Convention of lies, celebration of illegality, corruption and arrogance in failure, adding that any leadership birthed through such process can only be overtly corrupt, debauch and illegal.
The party had also tackled the APC over the choice of Abdullahi Adamu as national chairman, adding that the latter had questions to answer over his probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2010.
“The PDP describes the APC jamboree in the name of a national convention as a convention of lies, celebration of illegality, corruption, and arrogance in failure adding that any leadership birthed through such process can only be overtly corrupt, debauch and illegal.
“It is clear that with the combination of the corrupt, deceitful, and rudderless Buhari-led APC government and the illegitimate Abdullahi Adamu-led party leadership, corruption, economic hardship and rudderlessness in the APC government will worsen in our country in the remaining one year of the APC in government.
“The new APC chairman should inform Nigerians why he was not courageous enough to submit himself to trial at the Federal High Court, Lafia, Nasarawa state, rather than hide under technicalities. Senator Adamu should therefore come clean to Nigerians on the said case, before parading himself as a saint.
“It is therefore pathetic to see senator Adamu showboating on stage to impress his puppet master by attempting to denigrate other Nigerians and our great party, the PDP.
“Our party has only pity for senator Adamu and does not intend to confer him an undue relevance with a response. Senator Adamu should, however, be conscious of the fact that time does not run against the state in criminal matters. He should therefore not have any illusion that being an APC chairman will avail him of a perpetual cover.
“In any case, the PDP restates its cautions that the purported APC national working committee (NWC), does not have the legitimacy of office as the process that produced it under the caretaker/extraordinary convention planning committee (CECPC) remains unconstitutional and flawed.
“The PDP cautions aspirants intending to participate in the 2023 general elections under the APC to note that they are on a journey to nowhere with the APC”, the statement read.
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