The All Progressives Congress in Ekiti State has said Governor Ayodele Fayose’s criticism of the party’s presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, is driven by self-preservation over the governor’s past misdeeds and not in the national interest.
The party said the governor is fighting the battle of his life that runs contrary to the general mood of the nation.
It advised him to concentrate his energy on how to ensure victory for the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, instead of lecturing APC on why it should not field General Buhari as its candidate for the March 28presidential election.
The state’s APC Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun, said in a statement that Fayose ought to be celebrating President Jonathan for his youthful age over Buhari who he saw as not fit to be president on account of his old age.
Olatubosun said: “PDP said it would rule for 60 years and fortunately it is presenting a ‘youthful’ President Jonathan as its candidate. Fayose should have concentrated his energy and resources on promoting ‘youthful’ President Jonathan to enable his party win instead of sweating over APC presenting an old man as its candidate.”
Reminding Fayose that the APC is not the same thing as PDP, Olatubosun noted: “PDP has an agenda to kill all institutions of government as it is currently doing and make corruption a creed. Never in the history of this country have we recorded cases of frauds and scandals as we have today in Nigeria. These are the legacies that PDP can flaunt. Unfortunately, Fayose is equating PDP with Nigeria.
“Fayose has turned APC to a PDP affair. He said former President Olusegun Obasanjo imposed a sick man, the late Umaru Yar’Adua, on PDP in 2007 and President Yar’Adua died after two years in office. The question is; is Buhari in PDP and he is now being imposed by Obasanjo again? How does Buhari’s old age threaten PDP’s bid to rule for 60 years?
“Again, Fayose said he had a vision that Buhari will never be president. If he is sure of his vision, why is he breathless about Buhari’s candidacy?”
Olatubosun noted that the governor is being hypocritical in his criticism of Buhari and the hoopla he is raising over his health status, saying that his actions so far pointed to the fact that Buhari is the favoured candidate among a vast majority of Nigerians.
He said: “The battle Fayose is fighting is for self-preservation and not because he wants a younger Nigerian to take the mantle of leadership to avoid the repeat of President Yar’Adua’s scenario. He is convinced that Buhari is the preferred candidate and that is why he is talking about Buhari as ‘old-man-President’.
“He doesn’t want a honest and disciplined President that will not tolerate impunity and lawlessness because he (Fayose) knows he can’t survive in any system where the law works. He is also haunted by his past and the fraud through which he was declared the governor in the June 21, 2014 election.
“Fayose is still facing criminal trial in Justice Adamu Hobon’s court at the Federal High Court, Ado-Ekiti, over alleged N1.3billion poultry project fraud. There are several unresolved murder cases during his first stint. Ekiti election fraud on tape and video being watched across the world is also there. He knows he can only survive these entire if his preferred candidate is the president.
“For what Fayose is, he will spare nothing in his campaign for self-preservation in a nation of 170 million people who want a reversal of what Fayose represents in private and public life.”
The APC spokesman said Nigerians had made up their minds to have Buhari as their president, stressing that no amount of blackmail and rhetoric fueled by selfishness will change the course of change sweeping across the country to have a disciplined and visionary president that will redirect the affairs of Nigeria to build a virile nation.