The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate in the most recent general elections, Atiku Abubakar, was criticized by the All Progressives Congress (APC), as were Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Mallam Nasir-el-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State.
The APC statement followed the trio’s separate remarks during the two-day conference on Strengthening Democracy in Nigeria, which was held in Abuja, in which they indicted the ruling party. Atiku had made a clear accusation that the ruling party was using money incentives to cause crises within the opposition parties.
In addition to claiming that the APC has since devolved into a one-man show, the former governor of Kaduna state claimed that forces he refused to acknowledge were responsible for the internal strife between the major parties.
Similarly, the LP presidential candidate spoke. However, the APC rejected the accusation as baseless in a statement last night that was signed by Barrister Felix Morka, its National Publicity Secretary.
Morka insisted that the APC was dedicated to upholding the integrity of the voting process, dismissing the 16 years of the former ruling party, the PDP, as the worst in the country’s history. “Like a badly broken record, former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has continued to point fingers at the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the festering rot in his party and the spectacular dysfunction of opposition parties generally,” he said in part in his statement.
“Atiku cautioned that the country’s democracy was partly threatened by judicial participation in electoral concerns during the national conference on Strengthening Democracy in Nigeria, which was held in Abuja on Monday, January 27, 2025. Additionally, Atiku claimed without any proof that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu was giving some opposition leaders a staggering 50 million naira apiece in order to disband the nation’s opposition groups.
“The PDP held the worst elections in our political history during Atiku’s tenure as vice president, especially in 2003 and 2007.” It is impossible for us to forget how Atiku’s PDP swept across the majority of the South-West states and declared their intention to hold onto power for 60 years. During those same years, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, Atiku’s former employer and the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s president at the time, famously referred to elections as a “do or die affair” in an effort to acquire Lagos.
Is Nigeria at risk of losing democracy now that elections are so much more free, fair, and credible than they were in those dangerous times, when democracy was neither threatened nor derailed?
Like the legislative and executive branches, the judicial branch of government was established by the constitution and has the authority to decide cases involving both citizens and the government. When a petitioner legitimately invokes the court’s authority, Atiku cannot wish away or attempt to remove the courts’ enshrined ability to intervene in civil issues, including electoral disputes. It is ironic that Atiku, Nigeria’s most active electoral litigator, would make the absurd assertion that judicial intervention in elections threatens democracy.
Given his lengthy history of manipulating the legal system to achieve his political objectives, his criticism of the judiciary and the election process seems implausible.
The democracy of Nigeria is significantly more robust than Atiku’s political aspirations. An elder statesman’s apocalyptic rhetoric and petty politics are not what we deserve.
As a seasoned politician, one would think Atiku would know that, although winning elections may be a goal of democracy, upholding the will of the people and advancing the common good are more crucial. Atiku ought to concentrate on reviving his party and providing positive answers to Nigeria’s problems. “Atiku’s claim that the APC-led government was giving some opposition leaders 50 million naira is utterly baseless and absurd.”
“Atiku is aware that the PDP’s disastrous collapse is the result of his political desperation. Rumors and unsupported accusations should not be sold by someone in the position of an elder statesman.”
“It is pathetic and merely an inept excuse for their blatant inability to run their own affairs that opposition leaders like Atiku, Peter Obi, and more recently, resentful leaders like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, have made the absurd suggestion that our great Party may be involved in the internal disintegration of opposition parties.
Despite their inability to lead their parties, they boast of having the ability to lead the most populous nation in Africa. “As astute citizens, Nigerians are aware that the false alarm and baseless accusations of desperate politicians seeking to maintain their political relevance in the run-up to the general elections in 2027 are not to be taken seriously.”