The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organization has charged Nigerians to see the February 25, 2023 Presidential election as an opportunity to deal the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its Presidential Candidate, Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, a devastating electoral punch for the anguish, pain, sufferings, mass killings and untold hardships they visited on Nigerians in the almost eight years of the APC calamitous administration.
The Atiku/Okowa Campaign in a statement on Tuesday urged Nigerians to recompense the APC with a humiliating defeat for its wickedness by voting enmasse for the Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who embodies the hope for a new lease of life in our country.
“Our campaign stresses that Nigerians cannot afford to gloss over the horrible experiences which they have been made to endure in almost eight years of APC, the administration which Tinubu claimed to have unilaterally foisted upon our country.
“Nigerians should approach the ballot box with a determination to repay the APC and Tinubu for the devastation they caused our country by opening her to terrorists and marauders to kill and maim our compatriots, rape our women and took Nigerians into slavery in their own country; the APC took pleasure in watching the killing of innocent Nigerians, including the massacre of our youths during the EndSars Protest of October 2020; the APC also turned our nation into a large killing field, brought a near fascist regime and foisted a terrible siege mentality on the people.
“Nigerians must go to the presidential election with the consciousness of how the arrogant, abusive, insensitive, corrupt and incompetent APC and its Presidential Candidate viciously pillaged our national patrimony, turned our revenues generating agencies into their cash cows, wrecked our once robust economy which was hitherto rated as one of the fastest growing in the world, ruined our productive sectors, took away jobs from our youths and turned our nation into the poverty capital of the world, where over 100 million Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life.
“Our citizens must remember how the APC plundered our national treasury, imposed policies that ruined the value of our Naira, imposed heavy taxes and unjustified increase in tariffs for essential goods and services, triggered astronomical rise in the cost of food and indispensable commodities, reduced the purchasing power of citizens, unimaginably turned industrious Nigerians to beggars and brought so much anguish that Nigerians resorted to suicide and slavery mission abroad as options.
“In the almost seven and half years of the APC administration, Tinubu and his co-travellers in the APC are reported to have used his various Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) companies to fritter over N14 trillion from our revenue generating agencies, part of which have been used to acquire choice property apart from those stashed away in vaults and bullion vans for vote buying purposes.
“The Atiku/Okowa Campaign urges Nigerians to bear in mind how corrupt APC leaders pillaged our petroleum sector, through very fraudulent subsidy regime and criminal increase in pump price of fuel through which trillions of naira meant for our developmental needs; healthcare, education, security, housing, employment and critical infrastructure was diverted to APC interests including cronies of the APC Presidential Candidate.
“Nigerians must on February 25 remember that the APC and Tinubu are responsible for the hunger, starvation and devastation in the land.
“Under the PDP, a liter of fuel which sold at N97 now sells between N400 to N500 in many parts of the country, a bag of rice which sold for N8000 now sells for N40,000 and above, a measure of beans which sold at N250, now sells for N1000, a measure of garri which sold for about N100 now sells for N450 and above, a liter of kerosine which sold for N150 now sells for above N1000 a liter, a bottle of palm oil which sold for N300 now sells for N1,200 under APC anti-people policies.
“These are the legacies of Bola Tinubu which he wants to perpetuate and worsen if elected as President.
“It is therefore instructive for Nigerians to observe that the APC Presidential Candidate is at the center of all the woes that characterized the APC administration. He is the initiator and architect of the anti-people policies of the APC administration that have brought pains and hardships to Nigerians.
“This informs why Tinubu has not been heard forcefully condemning the mindless killings, the harassment of Nigerians including the media as well as the massive corruption in critical agencies where his cronies are in charge.
“Our campaign cautions that Nigerians must note the simple fact that Tinubu has nothing to offer and this accounts for his inability to debate or engage with Nigerians all through his rowdy campaigns.
“From Tinubu’s trajectory since 1999 as Governor of Lagos State and now the leader of the vicious APC, it is clear and abundantly so that Tinubu’s approach to governance has been self-serving.
“It is also important to point out that any vote for APC and its Presidential Candidate amounts to invitation to more suffering as well as an endorsement of corruption, oppression, treasury looting, land grabbing and the agenda to turn Nigeria into Tinubu’s fiefdom where compatriots stand the risk of losing their lands and resources therewithin.
“Moreover, Nigerians must awaken themselves to the reality that Tinubu has not made any quality promise to secure their votes except the tragicomical banters of balablu.
“Our campaign therefore calls on Nigerians, including those whose loved ones fell victim of the mindless killings, those maimed as victims of rape, kidnap and arson attacks, those whose families gave up on life and took the supreme option, those suffering all forms of social dislocations occasioned by the compromising of national security by the APC; those whose jobs and means of livelihood were taken away; families who cannot afford their daily meals as well as all Nigerians who are suffering one form of anguish or the other because of the misrule of the APC to stand up, unite and resist the APC by voting for Atiku Abubakar on February 25, 2023.
“This election is a referendum on the eight years of the APC, a government that Tinubu claimed to have personally installed under which Nigerians have suffered untold hardships,” the statement partly read.
The Atiku/Okowa campaign further noted that the 2023 Presidential election is a grand opportunity for all Nigerians to liberate themselves from the atrocious APC by voting enmasse for Atiku Abubakar, who is “leading the charge in the mission to rescue, recover and rebuild our nation from the misrule of the APC”.