The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has slammed the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, over comments he made about the party in Saudi Arabia.
Okay Nigeria reported on Monday that Tinubu was hosted alongside other dignitaries in Saudi Arabia to a iftar dinner by President Muhammadu Buhari.
After the iftar dinner, Tinubu said the Peoples Democratic Party is reputed for “saucy and distractive statements’’, urging Nigerians not to be angry with the opposition party, but assist them to overcome their “colossal defeat” in the February 2019 elections.
He said, “Don’t blame them. They are handicapped by the traumatic feelings of the colossal loss of the election. You should help them to manage the trauma.”
However, the PDP has responded to the former Lagos governor in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement read in part:
“It is atrocious that at the time other leaders are in the Holy Land offering prayers and supplications for our nation, Asiwaju Tinubu is in Mecca for photo-ops, playing dirty politics and hauling insults at other Nigerians just to curry relevance before President Buhari.
“The party noted that nothing but sheer hypocrisy would push Asiwaju Tinubu to engage in unholy praises of a failed administration in a desperation to avert the purported threats by certain agents of the Buhari Presidency to expose him.
“This is the same Asiwaju Tinubu, who, in January 2018, at the 15th Annual Daily Trust Dialogue, berated the Buhari administration for its nepotism, incompetence, corrupt oil subsidy regime; blaming it for the high-level poverty in our country and counseled Nigerians to be guided by their conscience in electing leaders in the 2019 general elections.
“Asiwaju, in criticizing the Buhari administration held rightly that ‘too much political and economic power resides in the hands of too few. This result in a society described by too much of unemployment, inadequate infrastructure, too little food, yet too much poverty’.
“He then added correctly that under President Buhari, ‘rather than becoming a joyous nation, Nigeria has become a cruel playground where the fears and concerns of the average person get exploited but their interests never get promoted.”
Furthermore, the PDP therefore lambasted Tinubu for making allusion to its determination with Nigerians to retrieve Atiku Abubakar’s stolen presidential mandate at the court, adding that no amount of blackmail can detract from this resolve.
The party also cautioned Tinubu to call himself to order, particularly as Nigerians, including members of his party, APC, have seen through his power-grabbing antics and are now determined to give him the back seat treatment.
