The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) flag bearer, Atiku Abubakar, will sell the country’s assets for personal gains.
Tinubu made this statement when speaking with the massive crowd that welcomed to the venue of the rally in Ilorin, Kwara State on Tuesday.
Tinubu had gone to Kwara for the mega presidential rally to drum support for his presidential ambition.
Tens of thousands of Kwara residents waved ecstatically on the streets of Ilorin to usher in Tinubu and other dignitaries to the state for the campaign flag off.
Speaking on Tuesday at the campaign rally, the former Governor of Lagos said, if elected, Atiku Abubakar is seeking to come back to power to “devour what it could not take initially”.
PDP was in power from 1999 to 2015, before President Muhammadu Buhari of the APC took over.
Tinubu said Nigerians must not let the PDP come back to power.
“Do not let them back in. They only want to devour what they could not take the first time. If you give them the chance, they will strip Kwara and Nigeria bare to the bone,” he said.
“The PDP candidate in the race is well known for selling everything that has the Federal Republic of Nigeria’s name on it. If it is part of the public treasury or national patrimony, he is looking to pawn it to one of his shady partners.
“He wants to sell off your chance at a decent job, good schools, a nice home and a happy life. His aim is to sell and turn our public assets into his private profit. He wants you to go hungry so that he can feast off the abundance of the land.
“Before today, we used to call him Mr. Privatise. But today, we must give him a new name. One that comes from his own mouth.
“He is now Mr. SPV. From his own mouth, we have heard him admit that he and his old boss conspired to rob from the Nigerian treasury millions upon millions of dollars.”
“The APC presidential candidate said if elected, he would return farming to its glorious past of profitability.
“Farmers will be paid the full value of their toil and their produce. This will be achieved through commodity exchange boards setting a minimum price for strategic agricultural produce,” he said.
“We shall create agricultural hubs throughout Nigeria. These hubs will increase land under cultivation.
“They will also wed small, medium and large farms so that small farms will benefit from the expertise and equipment of the larger ones.”
Meanwhile, the President, Muhammadu Buhari was not present at the campaign rally due to some foreign engagement that was unavoidable.
This was made known in a statement released on Tuesday.
The statement reads: “We regret to announce the postponement of Bola Ahmed Tinubu/Shettima APC presidential campaign rally scheduled to hold in Ilorin on Tuesday, January 17, 2023. This is to allow President Muhammadu Buhari to lead the campaign.
“The President is scheduled for an international engagement outside the country this week, beginning from Tuesday, but insists he would like to personally lead the APC presidential rally in Kwara.” With less than six weeks to the presidential polls, Tinubu and the APC will be hoping to stamp their dominance in states like Kwara which it already governs at the moment.”
Tinubu will have to fend off stiff competitors like Peter Obi, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party as well as Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in February’s presidential polls.