The Presidential Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has urged Nigerians not to be deceived by the fake promises of former Vice President Atiku Abukakar.

Tinubu said Atiku, the Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Partty (PDP), should be shameful of his party’s record in office instead of “embellishing the locust years as if it was a golden era in our history.”

He said: “We need to warn Nigerians to be wary of the sugar-coated promises of former vice president, Atiku Abubakar and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as they embark on their inordinate and desperate campaign to gain power at all cost.

“A party that should be eternally shameful about its appalling record in governance between 1999 and 2015 is now busy rewriting history, embellishing the locust years as if it was a golden era in our history.

“Of course, this is fake history at its worse. We are not fooled. Nigerians should also not be fooled about the boldfaced lies, being articulated by the candidate and his party.”

Tinubu, in a statement made available to The Star on Sunday by Bayo Onanuga, Director of Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, said he is not totally surprised about Atiku’s latest desperation.

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According to him, “Aware that this is his last shot at the elusive presidency, Atiku, while on the hustings, has been spewing series of lies, making empty promises and presenting a false narrative about our present reality and the legacy of the 16-year ignoble era of the PDP administration, of which he was a principal actor.

“He claimed at his rally in Abuja on Saturday that the country is not secure for trading and farming, a false narrative that he has been pushing around for some time, since he relocated to Nigeria from his base in Dubai, principally to contest the election.

“We believe in his private moment that Atiku will concede that his view about insecurity is exaggerated. Our country is certainly better secure than in 2015 when the PDP allowed insurgents to seize 17 local councils in Borno and some four councils in Atiku’s home state of Adamawa State, when Abuja was under constant bomb attacks and people slept with eyes wide open. What further proof of progress made by the APC does Atiku need than the fact that he was able, recently, to carry his party men and women to Maiduguri to hold a rally, without any attacks by insurgents and bandits. Atiku can also drive smoothly from Yola, his state capital to Jada, his home town on a reconstructed road by the Buhari-led APC administration. The road was impassable for 8 years Atiku was Vice President and got progressively bad and totally cut off from civilisation until the Buhari government reconstructed it.”

Atiku’s promise to ensure that ASUU does not go on strike was also dismissed by Onanuga.

“The most grotesque of Atiku’s promise is that he will ensure that the ASUU stopped going on strike so that universities “reopen forever and ever.” Mr Atiku forgot to tell his audience that a PDP government in 2009 signed an agreement with ASUU, which it never implemented for six years, leaving the mess of the agreement for APC to deal with.

“Meanwhile, as Nigerian universities were left to rot under the PDP’s watch, Atiku and his boss, President Olusegun Obasanjo opted to set up their own universities, ABTI-American University and Bell University, meant for the children of the rich,” he said.

The APC Presidential Candidate also faulted Atiku on his plan to sell the refineries.

“A pointer that this former vice-president has not changed in his character as portrayed by Obasanjo was his promise to sell the newly commercialised NNPC Ltd and all its assets and subsidiaries for just $10 billion. Even before inviting bids, he had already undervalued the oil conglomerate, the way he undervalued Nigerian companies he was asked to sell, under the abused privatisation programme of the Obasanjo administration.

“Nigerians will remember that he made a similar promise in 2019, saying he would sell the NNPC to his friends and cronies. Surely, he retains the same mindset, though he has changed the terminology to privatisation,” he said.

The Star