The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday has condemned the needless resort to sheer hysteria by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the President Goodluck Jonathan administration over the globally-acclaimed appearance of the APC’s presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, at the Chatham House in London on Thursday.
PDP had on Thursday wished the appearance away, saying that the APC was engaging in wishful thinking. The party had also said Nigerians had resolved that they would vote for Jonathan’s continuity during the presidential election.
In a statement issued in London on Friday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC said even when it was so apparent that the PDP and the Jonathan administration were so stunned and stung by Buhari’s well-accepted presentation, they could have saved themselves from further disgrace by simply keeping quiet, instead of exposing their inanities.
“For the spokesmen of the PDP and the Jonathan Campaign organisations to have rushed to the press to denounce what was a patriotic presentation by a high-regarded Nigerian is not only absurd but a new low, even for those who have lost every sense of propriety in their public actions and pronouncements,” Mohammed said.
He further stated that the level of paranoia of the PDP and the Jonathan Administration was so high, even before the General’s presentation that they went to hire some poor folks to protest at the Chatham House over an issue they knew nothing about.
He said it was just as well that the rent-a-crowd show boomeranged on the PDP/Jonathan administration, when those among the scanty protesters who were interviewed said they did not even know why they have come there, with some of them hiding behind their placards.
“The fact that the Jonathan administration wasted public funds in hiring people to protest against General Buhari’s appearance is another indication of how the commonwealth has been consistently frittered away under the clueless and incompetent Jonathan administration,” Mohammed alleged, wondering who appropriated the funds that were wasted on the uninformed and disinterested band of protesters.
Mohammed described as the “worst case of double standard for the loudmouths of the PDP and the Jonathan administration” to question the basis for Buhari’s appearance at the Chatham House, when the same platform was used a few weeks back by the administration, which sent National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki there to push for the postponement of the 2015 general elections.
“So it is OK for Dasuki to speak at the Chatham House, one of the most important platforms for any statesman, but forbidden for the APC presidential candidate to use the same platform?
“The needless vituperation of the PDP and the Jonathan megaphones against our candidate is precisely the reason the sinking ruling party and the failed-administration it sired has become the butt of jokes around the world.
“Instead of apologising for seeking to pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians by saying that Gen. Buhari went to London for medical treatment, these band of poor propagandists persisted in dancing naked in the public square. What a pity?” Mohammed added in the statement.
He hailed Buhari for his well-crafted, well-delivered and patriotic presentation, and his deft handling of the subsequent question-and-answer session at such a big-league platform as the Chatham House, saying despite the barrage of personal attacks and death wishes by the PDP and its agents, the General’s stock has continued to rise both within and outside Nigeria.
