The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that the miscues and gaffes committed by the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Bola Tinubu during electioneering, are unsettling.
Mr. Phrank Shuaibu, special assistant on public communications to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr. Atiku Abubakar, who made the observation yesterday asked the APC to replace Tinubu to avoid embarrassment to the party.
Shuaibu made the call in a statement following a blunder committed by Tinubu on Saturday at a Lagos rally where he mispronounced permanent voter cards (PVC) as APV.
Addressing party supporters at the Teslim Balogun Stadium in Surulere where the rally was held, Tinubu was caught on video as saying: “Do you love me? Do you love me? Go and take your APV, and APC and you must vote.”
Shuaibu said the APC presidential candidate was already becoming a content supplier to skit makers, meme-makers, and Tiktokers adding that “he is a self-writing joke and will make Nigeria a bye-word for scorn among the comity of nations, which is why he shouldn’t get close to power.”
Shuaibu said: “It is public knowledge that every time Tinubu has come out in public to make a statement or two, he has always goofed. If he is not saying that voter cards have an expiration date, he is saying that young Nigerians are tweeting on WhatsApp or that 50 million youths should be recruited into the Nigerian Army and be fed with cassava in the morning and agbado in the night. How can you say Nigerians are tweeting on WhatsApp? Common, is that the kind of person we want to hand 21st century Nigeria over to?
“In his latest gaffe at the Lagos rally, he asked Nigerians to get their APV to vote for APC when even primary school children know that the PVC is the only item that admits a voter into a polling unit.
“Without mincing words, Tinubu’s gaffes already supply comedians, skit makers, meme-makers, and TikTokers with content. He is a self-writing joke and will make Nigeria a bye-word for scorn among the comity of nations, which is why he shouldn’t get close to power.
“Truth be told, lack of mental depth complicated by dementia occasioned by old age is the most-recommended criterion against a Tinubu presidency. And examples abound to buttress this point.”
In its reaction, the APC presidential campaign council described the PDP as “an unserious party” saying it left “germane issues” raised by Tinubu during his campaigns in the south east and south-south to discuss “unimportant matters like speech slips.”
“It is a campaign in nitpicking. It is surprising that Shaibu left the germane issues raised by Asíwájú at the rallies in Abakaliki, Warri, Gbaramatu and Lagos about how PDP looted the Nigerian commonwealth in its 16 years in power, how it failed to solve electricity crisis, rail, roads and so on. Only an unserious party and candidate will be concerned with unimportant matters like speech slips,” the PCC said in a statement by its director of media and publicity, Mr. Bayo Onanuga.
