Why Dogara Is Aggrieved – Tinubu/Shetima Campaign Council

By Ayodele Oni

The Tinubu/Shetima Presidential Campaign Committee, (PCC), has taken a swipe at former Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara. It said his failed Presidential ambition has made him to embark on a campaign of calumny against the candidate of the All Progressive Congress, (APC).

PCC Director Media and Publicity, Bayo Onanuga, in a statement, pointed out that Dogara’s  hate speeches are aimed at

whipping up emotions so as to  set the country ablaze.

Onanuga in the statement states that “Former Speaker of House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara has apparently lost his mind since he could not realise his self-imposed ambition to be on the Presidential ticket of All Progressives Congress.

“On account of this, he has certainly become a reprobate and demagogue, delivering hate speeches and whipping up emotions, with the aim of setting our country ablaze.

“The Tinubu-Shettima Presidential  Campaign Council is, therefore, not surprised by media reports about a meeting of some so-called Northern Christian leaders, who claimed to be members of our All Progressives Congress that was championed by Dogara and his ilks. The claim was totally fraudulent.

“Yakubu Dogara, the peripatetic and politically unstable politician who organized the meeting left our party officially and unceremoniously weeks ago. And those who attended the meeting were representing themselves, their selfish agenda, not Northern Christians.

“Before then, the former Speaker  had spearheaded a campaign of vitriol and hate against our party, using religion as camouflage, after he lost the  Vice-presidential candidacy to a better, qualified Senator Kashim Shettima.

“A careful reading of the people who attended the unholy  meeting he called also showed that they were all PDP members, masquerading as APC members.

“Among the politicians at the  unholy consultative meeting were Mukhar Shagari, Boni Haruna, Abdulfattah Ahmed;  Damishi Sango; Senator Idris Ahmed Umar; and two former deputy governors of Kogi State, Yomi Awoniyi and Simon Achuba. They are all PDP members working for the Presidential ambition of Atiku Abubakar.

“We were not surprised by the resolutions adopted. Our surprise was that the Media failed to read through their smokescreen.

“The APC PCC wondered how the assembly of strange bedfellows hoped to foster unity and cohesion in our country, when their candidate represents the antithesis of the goal, having emerged the greatest divider of our polity, between the North and South.

“All Nigerians are aware that Atiku’s emergence as the PDP Presidential candidate grossly violated a power rotation code between the North and the South.

“His insistence on snatching and retaining what rightly belongs to another political region has triggered a crisis within his party, making him run from Port Harcourt to London to mend fences.

“We want to assure Dogara and his co-travellers fanning hate campaign against our Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and his running mate, that they will fail spectacularly at the polls.

“From  the engagements our leaders have had with men of all faiths, bigotry will not win next February election.

“What will prevail are the track records of our candidates and the solution-driven and all-inclusive progressive programmes the candidates offer Nigerians.

“Asiwaju Tinubu and Senator Shettima are going into this campaign with clear objectives to engage Nigerians across the socio-economic brackets on policy actions that will make their lives better.

“Our candidates will not exploit our country’s fault lines to win election and sell religion as Kool Aid.”