A spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council (APC PCC), Femi Fani-Kayode, has faulted the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for its suit challenging the candidacy of APC’s Bola Tinubu in the February 25th presidential elections.
The spokesperson for the PDP campaign council, Kola Ologbodiyan, told journalists on Monday that the party had approached the courts seeking the Tinubu’s disqualification over allegations bordering on conviction for trafficking narcotics in the United States.
But Fani-Kayode, who made a live appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today later in the day, described the claims as baseless.
According to the former aviation minister, the case is being initiated by the PDP as a smokescreen to deflect from the APC’s own case against the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, for alleged corruption.
“This is a simple lie. A fallacious mendacity. Complete falsehood. He [Tinubu] was never convicted. The Americans themselves said that he was not indicted and neither was he convicted.
“Yet, they keep bleating like little children about these things. There’s no basis in reality in it. It’s a very simple thing. For us, this a civic duty.
“We need to be responsible and it is our duty to expose Atiku for what he really is and we will continue to do that. They have tried to respond by bringing all manner of insults, all manner of fake allegations without any credible evidence.
“If you have that kind of evidence, present it before the public and let us see. Then we will consider what you’re saying. So, then stop throwing bricks where you have nothing inside them to carry weight,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, the PDP PCC said it had commenced a legal process to disqualify the APC presidential candidate from contesting the 2023 presidential election.
According to Ologbodiyan, the PDP is asking the court to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to immediately delist Bola Tinubu as presidential candidate of the APC or any other political party.
The party says it is filing for an accelerated hearing in the interest of the country’s legal stance on ex-convicts and their rights to contest an election.