The camp of Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, has mocked his counterpart in the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu for allegedly avoiding media and live interviews.
Phrank Shaibu, Special Assistant, Public Communications to Atiku in a statement played down the chances of Tinubu, declaring that Nigerians will not elect a ghost president.
He accused the APC presidential candidate of shying away from public scrutiny and using proxies to answer questions reserved exclusively for would-be presidents.
Shaibu who was reacting to the town hall meeting with the Organized Private Sector (OPS), said the former Lagos state governor had on two occasions dodged the invitation of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce Industry (LCCI) but decided to play smart by organising his own town hall meeting with the organised private sector at Eko Hotel and Suites, the same venue of the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) where he failed to show up in August.
Shaibu said rather than be bold enough to subject his ideas to scrutiny before a non-partisan panel of professionals as done by Atiku and even the candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi before the LCCI, Tinubu decided to organise his own event in Lagos where he dictated the pace of events and filled up the room with most of his supporters and fans who applauded his ideas.
“After reading out his uninspiring speech, Tinubu sat on the high table and systematically dodged questions directed at him by the audience. Rather, he delegated his team members to answer all the questions on his behalf, an indication that he lacks a clear understanding of the issues plaguing the country and is hiding his ignorance,” Shaibu said.
He noted that Town Hall meetings are supposed to be events where candidates display their understanding of issues and inspire hope in the electorate, emphasising that such important events are no mere gatherings where aides speak on behalf of their principals.
Shaibu said, “From indication, his aides spoke more than he did at the event, an indication that he didn’t even need to be there in the first place. Clearly, Tinubu plans to run a proxy government in the unfortunate event that he wins the Presidential election.”
He recalled that in August, Tinubu refused to attend the Annual General Conference of the NBA where all other candidates had been invited to speak on their plans for the country. Rather, he decided to send his running mate, Kashim Shettima, whose dress sense took the shine off the event.
According to him, the conduct of the APC presidential candidate and his decision to cleverly dodge dialectic public conversations may not be unconnected with Tinubu’s alleged lack of mental coordination and understanding of Nigeria’s core problems.
“At the KADInvest programme in Kaduna last month, he spoke about how Governor Nasir El-Rufai turned a ‘rotten situation to a bad one’. In Kano last year he revealed his plan to recruit 50 million youths into the military in order to tackle unemployment while he went off tangent at a book launch back in July, talking about ‘cassava, garri, agbado, eba and ewa’.
“Earlier this year, he advised Nigerians to go and renew their expired Permanent Voter Cards (PVC) thereby causing confusion in the polity until the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) issued a rebuttal,” Shaibu recalled.
Shaibu said Nigerians will not overlook these ominous signs, the reason Tinubu’s handlers have continued to shield him from open public engagements and scrutiny.
“He continually argues that he doesn’t need physical strength to lead Nigeria but only mental capacity. However, his refusal to publicly display this intelligence and articulate his thoughts should worry every well-meaning Nigerian who is still suffering from the seven-year misrule of the All Progressives Congress that has brought poverty, inflation and unemployment to an unprecedented height,” Shaibu explained.
He added that of all the 18 presidential candidates, Tinubu is the only one that has refused to subject himself to a media interview.
“Due to his continual refusal to be accountable, the Lagos godfather had to be publicly invited to the studio by Arise Television, an invitation that he remains too timid to honour since nobody would be able to teleguide him.
“We hope that Tinubu will be bold enough to attend the Presidential debate when the time comes as there are already early indications that he will claim that presidential debates are not mandated by Nigerian law,” the statement concluded.
