Nigeria’s main opposition party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), has accused the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) of committing more time and energy to “demonising” its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), than it is putting into informing Nigerians about how it plans to address the problems confronting the country.

The Director, Strategic Communications, of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, Mr. Dele Alake, in a  statement on Sunday, said the PDP had resorted to “abuses and foul temper” to whip up hatred against the person of the APC candidate.

“It is shocking that rather than explain itself over the multiple crises it has engendered or has failed to respond to or offer panaceas to these challenging troubles, desperate PDP candidates and spokesmen have stuck to the tactics of demonising the APC candidate in the presidential election, Buhari.

“We hereby alert public that desperation will intensify as the PDP senses the increasing possibility of losing the elections by a wide margin and once again, urge the PDP to honour the violence-free pact it recently signed by halting the violence in its statements,” he said.

Alake said: “One of the red herrings being projected by the PDP and its many hatchet writers in the media is the allegation of corruption and favouritism in the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) run by  Buhari under the Sani Abacha regime and a little after.

“The critics suggest the existence of dossiers and investigative reports supposedly indicting the APC candidate of unwholesome activities when he presided over the affairs of the agency. But a few days ago, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who was supposed to have commissioned the investigation, disclosed that he was in possession of the report and nothing untoward was established against the APC candidate.

“To the astonishment of all right thinking persons, the PDP has chosen not to believe in the authority of President Obasanjo who ordered the investigation and has final say on it,  but prefers to allege that the man who has the fact is dead! Can there be a worse tragicomedy than this? Who really is fooling who?”

He alleged further that the “PDP’s agents and sometimes unfortunately too, President Goodluck Jonathan himself, continue to falsely accuse Buhari of either inspiring the violent Boko Haram sect or supporting them.

“Not only are the accusations not proven; the fact that Buhari’s convoy was attacked by the same sect was deliberately ignored by the PDP which continues to emphasise them, as part of a plot to label the APC candidate as a violent man who has no streak of democracy in him.

“It is true Buhari ruled as a military head of state, but it must also be acknowledged that Obasanjo also once ruled as a military head of state. Yet, that did not prevent the PDP from nominating and presenting him as its presidential candidate in 1999 and 2003 general election.

“Buhari was himself a victim of Boko Haram attack, and has also lost some relatives to the sect’s violent activities. He has denounced the sect, and has signified his preparedness to take on the militants on a much firmer and intelligent basis than President Jonathan has done in four years. In addition, though his views accorded with military dictates when he was head of state, he has submitted himself without reservation to democratic dictates in the past decade as he ran and still runs for elected office. It does not bear repetition to say that no elected president could rule like a military leader, when the constitution is very clear on how democracy must be run and with what institutions that must be done. No elected president can suspend any of the institutions of democracy. We hereby assert with all authority and knowledge that we can muster that a disciplined leader like Buhari would never engage in the disingenuous and reckless abuse of state security institutions such as invasion of database offices of rival parties as President Jonathan has done.

“It is clear that President Jonathan’s aides, ministers and hatchet writers base nearly all their accusations against Buhari on his period as military head of state.
They have nothing on him since then, except fishing from other commentators’ views on the retired general, views that were either politically inspired or else taken out of context. The PDP refuses to acknowledge that the times have changed, and that the dynamics of Nigerian politics and the grave challenges of the moment have made the APC candidate’s style, views and discipline precisely the pressing need of the moment.”