The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has been accused of double-speak and duplicity over its condemnation of the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, SAN for calling on the United States President, Donald Trump, to intervene and save Nigeria’s democracy.
The APC, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Felix Morka, condemned Turaki’s call as unpatriotic and reckless, noting that it amounted to a call for foreign invasion.
However, Special Assistant on Print Media to the Governor of Oyo State, Moses Alao, has countered the APC, noting that the party toed a similar path in 2014 when its then National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun and other leaders said they were ‘alerting’ “Nigerians and our international friends of the grave threat posed to our democracy and indeed the very survival of our nation by an increasingly-tyrannical federal government.”
According to Alao, condemning Turaki for alerting the same international community to APC’s undemocratic shenanigans amounted to cheating and fraud.
Recall that Alhaji Turaki had, on Tuesday, called the international community’s attention to the raging war against democracy, which is allegedly fuelled by the APC-led Federal Government, citing the invasion of the PDP National Secretariat by hoodlums allegedly on the orders of a serving Minister.
On Tuesday, the PDP leadership, including the Governors of Oyo and Bauchi states, ‘Seyi Makinde and Senator Bala Mohammed, Board of Trustees members and the party’s National Working Committee who had legitimate meetings slated for the party’s National Secretariat were locked out and attacked by expelled members of the party, who enjoy the backing of the Presidency.
In a response to the undemocratic act, the PDP national chairman called out to President Trump and other international bodies to intervene to save democracy in Nigeria, with Oyo State Governor, Makinde, equally declaring that there is an ongoing fight to save the future of democracy in Nigeria.
Deeming the call to save democracy as patriotic and timely, Alao maintained that Turaki’s call to Trump and the international community was in order, charging President Bola Tinubu and the APC to recover from their self-induced amnesia or go back to the records to see how they once used to call for ‘foreign invasion’ while in the opposition.
He said: “The ruling APC has continued to lie, cheat and failed to play by the same rules it set years ago in its desperation to capture power by all means possible.
“The ruling party thinks all Nigerians have fallen into a self-induced amnesia as the party has; but we cannot all forget at the same time, how the APC on June 20, 2014 called on the international community to intervene in Nigeria’s democracy, claiming that our democracy was in grave danger.
“Nigerians would recall how the evil party, APC, threatened not to accept election results; how it committed treason, inciting Nigerians against the Federal Government at every slight opportunity.
“It is funny that the APC cannot take the heat at this time, when it, indeed, started the conflagration. But the truth must be told; our democracy is endangered today more than it ever has in the history of Nigeria and all men of reason, including the international community, must rise in support of Governors Makinde, Mohammed and the PDP.
“In order to drive home the point in Turaki’s call, let me reproduce verbatim the APC’s statement of June 2014, which said: We call on our international partners to condemn this growing impunity by the ruling party and the government it controls at the centre. Actions have consequences, and whoever fails to condemn the acts of impunity being perpetrated by the central government will not have the moral right to condemn the reactions that such actions may elicit.
“The APC said the words above and it is clear that it lacks the moral right to condemn the PDP National Chairman for calling on President Trump to save our democracy. In fact, that party should be grateful that the current PDP leaders are men and women of peace, whose only objective is the survival of democracy, else things would have got worse.”
