With two weeks to the start of the 2019 general elections, a
heated exchange has ensued between the Coalition of United Political Parties
(CUPP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the health status and
fitness of President Muhammadu Buhari to seek re-election.
Spokesman for the coalition, Mr. Ugochinyere Ikenga said at a press conference in Abuja that CUPP had a suit seeking to disqualify Buhari from participating in the general elections.
He said the opposition parties filed the suit based on claims that the President is not healthy enough to lead the nation for another four years.
He said Buhari’s fitness was judged by his performance at different rallies where the president almost fell at one and made some blunders at others.
“In order to save this great nation the disaster that will follow if President Buhari is in a rare happenstance re-elected, we the opposition political parties have therefore filed litigation in court seeking to declare him unfit to contest for 2019 election because of his mental instability,” he said.
Ikenga also noted the allegations by the wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari that her husband’s government had been hijacked some people.
Ikenga stressed that it was for these reasons among others that the coalition took the decision to approach the court to declare the President unfit to run for a second term.
“We are also seeking from the court an order disqualifying President Buhari from contesting the election to the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and an injunction restraining (the Independent National Electoral Commission) INEC from recognising his candidature,” he added.
The CUPP spokesman disclosed further that the coalition urged the court to grant an order directing President Buhari to make public the result of the medical examination which the demanded that he should be subjected to.
He insisted that the group was taking the steps in its bid to save the country from what he described as a ‘calamity’.
However, APC’s national publicity secretary, Mr. Lanre Issa-Onilu, said CUPP does not exist and is only a tool of the PDP.
“The president is hale and hearty. I will not honour the so called CUPP with any response because they don’t exist. These are members of PDP who are looking for space to team up with Atiku as he has promised so that if he gets to power, they continue where they stopped,” he said at a press conference in Abuja.
The APC spokesman further said the opposition seemed to be surprised the president is touring round the country after saying Buhari would pass his responsibility to campaign to the national leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, who the president named as the co-chairman of his reelection campaign.
“It is crystal clear that this coming election is going to be a disaster for PDP and all efforts to scuttle the efforts, all efforts to blackmail the institutions that are responsible for the conduct of elections, all efforts to smear the image of the president, all that they have thrown at us, all have failed. So you can also say this is another effort which will also go to nothing.
“They started by saying the president will pass on his responsibility to campaign to the leader of the party, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, because he was not fit enough to go round the country to talk to the people. We have been working hard for three and a half years to improve their livelihood.”
He said the president is doing better than the opposition party’s candidate.
“But we have been doing well, more than their so-called healthy presidential candidate.
“The president is still going round the country. As I am speaking, he is in Kano, before a massive crowd such as never seen before.”
He said the president’s movement so far has shown he does not require any formal fitness report.
“If that is a miracle to them, you should understand that when God is involved that is how it looks,” said Issa-Onilu.
With Channels TV, Premium Times reports
