ACN Only Fooling Itself, Says PDP
ABUJA, June 24, (THEWILL) -The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Sunday branded the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) as a brood of dictators whose deceit and pretence to democracy are consistently hobbled by its habitual disregard for the rudiments of democratic process.
In a statement signed by Chief Olisa Metuh, PDP’s national publicity secretary, released in response to CAN’s denial that it had chosen its candidate for the Ondo State governorship election, PDP urged the opposition party to emerge from its cocoon of deceit and own up to its artful preference for the undemocratic style.
The rest of the statement reads:
“Who is fooling who? The ACN apparatchiks under its Pontifex Maximus met in Lagos in clear aberration of all known tenets of democracy and handpicked Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu, the former president of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as its candidate. The facts are there.”
“If Akeredolu has not been handpicked in the ACN's usual closed door as Mr. Lai lied, why are other aspirants protesting? Why are some of the 30 aspirants already going public with their disgust and frustration with the ongoing shenanigans in the ACN?
“The ACN has never been democratic and cannot start with Ondo State governorship election. We agree that the ACN is cut and dry with the INEC guidelines but who does not know they are plotting the graph of their flagrant imposition of candidate and other electoral impunity to curve within the intendment of the INEC rule.
“Who does not know that the so-called yet-to-be-scheduled primaries of the ACN, which Mr. Lai lied about, is a calculated endorsement rostrum designed to give legitimacy to a charade? The result of the congress will not be different from the decision already taken in Lagos. The isolated nature of the Ondo election is a window into the internal workings of the ACN, a party that evangelises Nigerians on democracy, yet, every passing moment, it sinks deeper into the morass of deceit and dictatorship.”
“It is pertinent at this juncture to ask the ACN to explain to Nigerians the value as quantified in electoral victory, of the unholy nexus that bonds it to some serving and retired judges. Will Lai Mohammed specifically tell Nigerians the role the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami played in the Lagos decision that handpicked Akeredolu or will he still lie about it?
“Has the ACN been able to disprove that it benefited from the suspended judge's 'political judgments' (apologies to ACN leader) that awarded PDP controlled states to them?"
“Will the ACN also deny that the involvement of Justice Salami and others in the candidacy of Akeredolu was a reward for the latter's coordinated efforts for Salami's recall to the Appeal Court?
“Will the ACN again deny that this concert of politicians and servants in the temple of justice in the build-up to the governorship election in Ondo State is not a ground work in anticipation of the unknown that may end in legal tussle?
“Nigerians are watching as the ACN keeps lying and deceiving the very few that have not seen through its wiles.”