APC, Buhari strongly behind Tinubu – Onanuga

The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) says the party’s leadership and President Muhammadu Buhari are strongly united behind Asiwaju Bola Tinubu toward a victory in the 2023 general election.

Mr Bayo Onanuga, the Director, Media and Publicity, APC PCC, said this in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja.

Onanuga said that all attempts by opposition elements to put a wedge between Buhari and Tinubu would fail.

He said the reference to the naira exchange rate by Tinubu at a campaign rally in Calabar, Cross River, was not an attack on the Buhari-led administration as was being speculated.

“We find it important to correct the misrepresentation of the statement of our candidate, Asiwaju Tinubu at the campaign rally in Calabar by a section of the media,” he said.

Onanuga said Tinubu at the rally, urged the party’s supporters and people of Cross River not to vote for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar because of their litany of failures while in power for 16 years.

“The reference to exchange rate was not in any way an attack on the Buhari-led APC administration, but an attempt to capture how the economic mismanagement of the PDP created a forex crisis in the country since 2015,” he said.

He added that individuals who followed the entire sequence and context of what Tinubu said at the Calabar rally would know he directed his statement against PDP and Atiku.

“Let’s we forget, the PDP left the forex reserve at $28 billion by May 2015, when Buhari took over despite unprecedented revenue from crude oil.

“Even with the massive oil theft and low price of crude, until recently, President Buhari had built up the reserve to about 38 billion dollars.

“The PDP in 1999 met the exchange rate at N85 to one dollar in 1999 and left it at N230 in 2015.

“The futile attempt to misrepresent Tinubu by the mischievous PDP media did not detract his central message,” Onanuga said.

He added that the former two-term Lagos State governor explicitly said the people should not follow PDP and Atiku because they don’t know the road.

Onanuga said that Tinubu could not have meant that Buhari does not know the road, having celebrated numerous times the achievements of his administration.

The APC Director of media and publicity, said Tinubu had also said at a campaign that he would build on Buhari’s achievements if elected on Feb. 25.

He said it was therefore simply illogical that the same Tinubu would attack the Buhari administration for not knowing the road.

“In contrast, throughout this campaign up till now, Tinubu has consistently said PDP and all the opposition parties put together do not know the road to prosperity for Nigeria.

“He also said the competing candidates do not have the track record he amassed as governor of Lagos.

“As the front runner in the presidential race, Tinubu has promised to implement his robust action plan that will bring socio-economic prosperity to our country,” Onanuga said.

He added that the APC PCC was, however, not unmindful of the antics of some media organisations to deliberately misrepresent Tinubu.

Onanuga said that such media organisations accentuate anything they thought would project Tinubu in a bad light since the beginning of the electioneering circle.