The Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization (PPCO) has dared President Muhammadu Buhari on the threats to arrest the presidential candidate of the PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Information and Culture Minister, Alhaji Lai Mohammed had, at a media briefing in Abuja on Friday, hinted that Atiku, who travelled to the United States on Thursday, would be arrested on his return to the country.
But the PDP has described the planned arrest as laughable and a heinous plot to frame Atiku, out of fear that he is already coasting to victory in the February 16 presidential election.
Addressing a media conference in Abuja on Friday, spokesman for the PDP Presidential Campaign, Kola Ologbondiyan, said President Buhari and the APC were already jittery over Atikuโs soaring popularity ahead of the elections.
โIt is reprehensible that Mr. President will descend abysmally low to fabricate outright lies and falsehood in a bid to discredit a more qualified and acceptable Presidential candidateโ, Ologbondiyan said.
The PDP campaign spokesman added that Atiku has nothing to do with the alleged issues leading to the collapse of Bank PHB, stressing that the PDP presidential candidate is an honest and hardworking Nigerian who has no skeleton of any sort in his cupboard.
Ologbondiyan further stated, โFor emphasis, even the Chairman of President Buhariโs Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay, had since told the world that the Buhari Presidency has searched everywhere and could not find anything incriminating on Atiku Abubakar.
โThe world already knows that this attempt to mudsling our Presidential candidate is coming out of President Buhariโs frustration over Atiku Abubakarโs successful outing in the United States, for which the Buhari Presidency has gone into full hallucination.
โThis is in addition to their frenzied face-saving effort to divert public attention from President Buhariโs humiliating appearances in the respective rallies and Television shows he has had.
โThe PPCO however, counsels President Buhari and the APC to note that Nigerians can see through their lies, fabrications and frustration and that their scheme against Atiku Abubakar is already dead on arrival.
โIf anything, the PPCO will want President Buhari to open the books and provide explanation for the N9 trillion stolen under his watch as Minister of Petroleum Resources as detailed in the leaked NNPC memo.
โPresident Buhari should as well, allow an open inquest into the alleged involvement of his relations in the N1.032 trillion alleged corrupt acquisitions in 9Mobile and Keystone Bank PLC.
โFinally, the PPCO states that the PDP Presidential candidate, our great party and indeed all Nigerians, who have already reached a national consensus to vote-in Atiku Abubakar as the next President of our country, will not be distracted by this unfounded allegation by the rejected President Buhari and his handlersโ.
