The All Progressives Congress (APC) has fired back at former Vice President Atiku Abubakar for criticizing President Bola Tinubu’s administration.
APC’s National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, in statement on Tuesday, labeled Atiku as “Africa’s most infamous election loser” due to his string of failed presidential bids.
Atiku had claimed the 2023 presidential election was “criminally stolen” from him, despite the Nigerian Supreme Court upholding Tinubu’s victory over a year ago. He also blasted Tinubu’s economic policies, calling them “trial-and-error” and responsible for citizens’ suffering.
However, APC countered by questioning Atiku’s ability to fix Nigeria when he can’t even address the issues within his own party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The APC pointed out Atiku’s consistent election losses since serving as vice president.
Atiku’s Election History:
Lost presidential elections in 1993, 2007, 2011, 2015, 2019, and 2023. Contested under various parties, including the Social Democratic Party, Peoples Democratic Party, and All Progressives Congress.
The APC’s statement highlights the ongoing tension between Atiku and the ruling party. With Atiku’s long history of election losses, it’s clear the APC is trying to undermine his credibility as a potential leader.
“Six times in the last 17 years, Nigerians have declared their verdict of untrustworthiness, incompetence, chronic corruption, visionlessness, uncanny desperation, and lack of sportsmanship on Atiku’s presidential candidacy, and roundly rejected him at the polls,” APC Spokesman said, “Atiku is Africa’s most infamous presidential election loser.”
Morka stated that despite Atiku’s long record of electoral defeat was serially certified by Nigeria’s highest courts, sealing his rejection by the electorate with judicial and constitutional finality, yet he continues to lay a bogus claim that he did not lose the 2023 presidential election.
“That is beyond comical. Just as he probably believes that he was cheated out of all previous five presidential elections that he also lost. Atiku’s inability to come to terms with the reality of his rejection cuts an ominous portrait of extreme and disturbing political desperation.
“Nigeria’s intelligent and discerning electorate will not act against their own best interest by electing into office a man with some of the most obscene record of breach of public trust, so odious that, former President Olusegun Obasanjo reportedly stated that “if I support Atiku for anything, God will not forgive me”.
He added, “Atiku is a central and recurrent player in some of our country’s most vile roll call of corruption scandals perpetrated PDP administration.
“Atiku was the Vice President in the government that created crooked and viscerally corrupt petrol subsidy hydra-headed dragon that has crippled our country’s economy, and laid the foundation for the endemic corruption and inefficiency that have undermined our power sector through the years.
“Atiku’s desperation to be president can only be understood in the context of his determination to complete the full subversion of Nigeria’s economic life from where he left off as Vice President. Nigerians will not entrust their country to someone who puts his selfish interest, and the interest of his cronies over and above the national interest.
“Having now demystified himself with the release, last Sunday, of “What I Would Do Differently”, it is now settled that Atiku has nothing to offer Nigerians but his stale, tired, tested and failed economic ideas that are at polar relevance to the current existential economic challenges facing our country.
“Atiku had a chance to execute whatever economic ideas he may have ever had. He failed fantastically to do so as vice president and also failed to get his forlorn PDP to do so in all of their 16 profligate years. Atiku thinks himself capable of fixing Nigeria but cannot fix the rot and hopeless dysfunction in his PDP.”
He, however appealed Nigerians to stand fast in support of the APC administration led by President Bola Tinubu and valiant effort to restore vitality to the county’s economy for the good of all Nigerians.
