The All Progressives Congress (APC) has described the PDP as a victim of self-inflicted paranoia following the ruling party’s panic reaction to a yet to be conducted opinion poll.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the PDP has only succeeded in committing an unforced error by its frenzied reaction, which is understandable considering the fact that the party is being pounded from all sides by both seen and unseen forces.
”The PDP is behaving like a punch-drunk boxer, who started flailing at everything and everyone but his opponent, having being disoriented by a staccato of body blows. Had it not been so, a party that is urging a focus on serious campaign issues would not have picked on the imaginary outcome of a public opinion poll,” it said.
APC said the PDP is not in a position to advise anyone on the conduct of opinion polls, when all it has engaged in over the years have been doctored and incestuous opinion polls.
”It is said that he who must come to equity must come with clean hands. It is apparent that this dictum is lost on the petrified PDP. This is a party that has been celebrating the outcome of the regular polls by the NOI Polls, when it is glaring that the brain behind this poll is a key Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. NOI stands for the initials of this Minister, and discerning Nigerians are aware of this.
”Because the NOI polls have been doctored to achieve a pre-determined end, the PDP made itself to believe it was doing well all along, when indeed it was leading Nigeria to a dark alley of economic and infrastructural collapse, massive unemployment as well as pervasive and unprecedented insecurity.
”Now that the die is cast and even the most ardent supporters of the PDP have realized that the game is up and are jumping off its sinking ship, the party has come to realize its folly. How then can such a party advise another party on how to conduct a public opinion poll?
”Even without any poll, Nigerians have come to realize that the Presidential Candidate of the APC, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, stands head and shoulders above his PDP counterpart not only physically but in terms of integrity, capability, vision, achievements and antecedents. Since these are the issues that will count during the forthcoming polls, the PDP can as well start learning how to be in opposition,” the party said.
It lambasted the PDP for casting aspersion on the integrity of the media by saying the APC is ”intensifying effort to compromise some section of the media”.
”The PDP has consistently shown nothing but disdain for the media, which was at the forefront of the fight for the democracy that the do-nothing folks at the PDP are now enjoying, undeservedly. If the media was so easy to compromise, it would have been compromised a long time ago and perhaps Nigeria would not have benefited from its selfless battle against military dictatorship.
”This lesson is lost on the trifling PDP, hence it has continued to hold the media in disdain, the latest instance of which is the unnecessary accusation of its being compromised. Our honest advice to those who did nothing when the epic battle to install this democracy was going on, but are now pretending to be its custodians, is that they should not crash it on the altar of careless, inciting and offensive statements,” APC said.
*Text of a press statement