THE successful formation of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) has sent jitters into the camp of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) under Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has observed.
The coalition was recently put together by the PDP and 38 other political parties including a faction of the APC as a vehicle to oust Buhari from power.
In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by Kola Ologbondiyan, its National Publicity Secretary, the main opposition party said fear has led the APC boss to resort to hauling of misdirected insults and abuses on the PDP.
The PDP said Oshiomhole’s resort to insults betrayed the confusion of a depressed politician seeking to cover his personal vacuity and inner fears of the inevitable defeat awaiting President Buhari and his dysfunctional APC in 2019.
The PDP said it held nothing but pity for Oshiomhole, “who is now licking his own vomit by going around cap in hand and begging the same compatriots whom he earlier called names like ‘inconsequential’, ‘hungry birds’ and ‘tired feet’, not to leave his sinking party.”
The statement added: “Unfortunately for Oshiomhole and his Presidential sponsor, events of the weeks ahead will clear all doubts that APC is dead and that Oshiomhole is just an undertaker, whose job is to cremate the derelict contraption by oppressors, who are falsely hailing themselves as messiahs.
“What Oshiomhole and President Buhari, in their fantasy trip, fail to understand is that those they seek to draw into the cave are already aware of the story of the sick lion and that all animals that went visiting never returned.
They know that the tiger does not offer his back for a ride without a price.
“Very soon Oshiomhole and President Buhari would find themselves alone in the cursed ‘Black Pearl’ that the APC has irredeemably become.
“While we understand Oshiomhole’s frustration over his inability to stop the coalition, the fact remains that he and President Buhari are fighting a lost battle in trying to destroy it.
“Nigerians have already reached a consensus to coalesce and vote-out President Buhari comes 2019 and replaces him with a more competent, pan-Nigerian President.
No amount of intimidation, threats, violence or even enticement of any kind can change this iron-cast resolve.”
The PDP, therefore, counselled Oshiomhole not to think that “clinging to a sinking ship and its deserted captain can save him from prosecution on allegations of humongous corruption and syphoning of billions of naira while serving as Edo state governor, for which he will surely face trial.”
Meanwhile the immediate past Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Timi Frank, has said that the “promises of oil wells and automatic tickets to some leaders of rAPC by the Presidency” won’t stop their planned defection in a matter of days.
Frank expressed surprise that “the leadership of APC and the Presidency could resort to begging and making promises of juicy positions, automatic tickets, including oil wells to some of our leaders.”
He, however, declared that about five governors, 30 serving senators and 135 House of Representatives members will all dump APC soon, assuring that there was no going back in their plan to stand by Nigerians who have asked them to leave.
In a statement the former APC spokesman signed in Abuja, yesterday, he said the move to retain the support of rAPC members and leaders by the Presidency was coming too late, wondering what has changed if the party could not fulfil it promises in the last three years.
“In a matter of days, Nigerians will have cause to celebrate our final exit from party of killings, poverty and propaganda to join hands with real progressive group in the country,” he said.
According to Frank, all the latest moves by President Muhammadu Buhari and the leadership of APC to persuade the leaders of rAPC were all efforts in futility.
“The same people that could not respect the agreement we had in the last three years are now begging, promising heaven and earth to our leaders. In deception, they have failed to realise that Nigerians now know their true colour. Their much talked about integrity is a delusion, they are wolfs in sheep’s cloth.
“Our plan to reject them and their party is not for personal gain. It is primarily to team up with real progressive group to rescue the country from the current handlers who rejoice when Nigerians are killed in their numbers, who value lives of cows to Nigerians, and religiously persecute opposition members in the name of fighting corruption.
“In 2019 general elections, Nigerians have come to know that a vote for the APC will mean a vote for hardship, oppression, insecurity and unemployment.
“We are teaming up to ensure an end to visionless leadership of the current APC government, and because our leaders in rAPC are men and women of honour, there is no going back in our plan to join forces to rescue Nigeria from incompetent APC leadership”, he said.
While calling on the leaders of rAPC not to give in to pressure, the Bayelsa-born politician warned that supporting the re-election bid of President Buhari was as good as giving consent to be jailed in the nearest future.