The Peoples Democratic Party on Sunday said the All Progressives Congress ( APC ),\u00a0 squandered a Whooping N5Billion, in a desperate attempt to package General Muhammadu Buhari at Chatham House in London.<\/p>\n
The party also described as ironical Buhari\u2019s admittance in London that the, Nigeria economy is doing real good.<\/p>\n
At a news conference in Abuja,\u00a0 Presidential campaign spokesman,\u00a0 Femi Fani-Kayode,\u00a0 dismissed Buhari\u2019s claim that the progress being made were on paper.<\/p>\n
According to him, there are sundry evidence in several sectors which shows the improvement had impacted on the lives of Nigerians.<\/p>\n
Fani-Kayode said ” The information at our disposal indicate that no less than N5 billion was budgeted for the London jamboree.\u00a0 This amount was wasted on General Buhari\u2019s Chatham House speaking engagement, numerous foreign consultants, air tickets for the huge delegation, the contingent of governors, hotels bills, the purchase and renting of vehicles and other logistics.\u00a0\u00a0 We challenge the APC and its leaders to contradict this information”<\/p>\n
On the economic strides referenced by Buhari Fani-Kayode said “We are happy that General Buhari admitted that under President Jonathan, Nigeria is now the largest economy in Africa with a GDP now valued at $510 billion and economy rated 26th in the world.\u00a0 He also admitted that \u201con the bright side, inflation has been kept at single digit for a while and our economy has grown at an average for about a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Full Text<\/p>\n
It is quite interesting to note that the All Progressives Congress (APC) is describing the appearance of its presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari last Thursday, at the Chatham House in London, as successful.\u00a0 This is not so and in fact the contrary is the case. The truth is that the outing was a monumental failure.<\/p>\n
The whole sorry episode has now fully exposed the APC as a party built on propaganda, deceit, make-believe and one which lacks respect for the people of Nigeria. A few days ago we promised to go into further detail on the Chatham House episode at a later stage and we have decided to do that today.\u00a0 Here are the facts.<\/p>\n
Buhari\u2019s appearance at Chatham House was a last-minute decoy to divert the attention of Nigerians and the whole world from the fact that his trip to London was mainly to seek medical attention and care.\u00a0 The point we are making is that General Buhari was not originally scheduled to go to Chatham House but in order to divert attention from the real purpose of the trip, the Chatham House speaking engagement was hurriedly put in place.<\/p>\n
The desperation of the APC leaders to grab power at all costs and by any means has resulted in them committing the most abominable and unimaginable form of fraud such as attempting to pass off an old interview which took place at the Abuja Transcorp Hilton Hotel by a known sympathiser of the APC whose name is Kemi Fadojutimi and who works for the USA-based TV show \u2018All Eyes on Africa\u2019, as one that took place in the United Kingdom and that was conducted by a so-called London based journalist.<\/p>\n
The APC propaganda machinery facilitated the publication of a picture of the interview, which they claimed took place in London, on the front pages of some newspapers.\u00a0\u00a0 Indeed, despite desperate attempts by the APC propaganda machinery to coerce newspapers from retracting the fraudulent picture of General Buhari\u2019s purported London interview, The Guardian, one of the most respected newspapers on the African continent, who had printed the picture on its front page edition on Sunday, 22nd February, 2015, was quick to publish a retraction on page 2 of the newspaper\u2019s Monday, 23rd February, 2015 edition.<\/p>\n
In the retraction, The Guardian wrote, and I quote, \u201cThe front page picture of yesterday in The Guardian on Sunday was not taken during the visit of Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) to London as we erroneously stated. The picture was actually taken in Abuja when he was being interviewed by a journalist. The error is regretted.\u201d End of quote.<\/p>\n
We commend the courage, the honesty, the professionalism and the decency of the Guardian newspaper in this matter and we urge all the newspapers that made the same mistake not to allow themselves to be intimidated by the APC media machine and also find the courage to publish a retraction and expose the APC lie.<\/p>\n
Now, it will interest you to know that General Buhari admitted when asked by the selected audience that he sought medical attention in London and declared: \u201cI am fit. My doctors have declared me fit.\u201d Yet his minders and publicists had claimed that he was not going to London for medical attention.\u00a0 That is how illogical General Buhari and the APC can be.<\/p>\n
There are some interesting facts about the Chatham House outing that Nigerians should know. The event was organised only two days before it took place and well after Buhari had arrived in London.\u00a0\u00a0 The questions that were asked were given to him two days before the event and the answers were prepared for him and given to him to rehearse.\u00a0\u00a0 The programme lasted for only 55 minutes and only five questions, which were all planted, were asked.<\/p>\n
The people in the Hall were sponsored.\u00a0 1,500 persons applied to attend the function but only 200 were allowed in.\u00a0 The audience was carefully selected.\u00a0 The APC mobilised many students from the Republic of Ireland, who were all on scholarship courtesy of the Rivers State Government, to embark on a pro-Buhari rally outside the Chatham House.\u00a0 The students were threatened that their scholarships would be withdrawn if they refused to participate in the rally.<\/p>\n
This was the show of shame that General Buhari has got himself involved in. Sadly Chatham House offered its prestigious platform to sell a bad product to the world.The APC leaders begged for the speaking engagement and we are reliably informed that they paid for it.<\/p>\n
The information at our disposal indicate that no less than N5 billion was budgeted for the London jamboree.\u00a0 This amount was wasted on General Buhari\u2019s Chatham House speaking engagement, numerous foreign consultants, air tickets for the huge delegation, the contingent of governors, hotels bills, the purchase and renting of vehicles and other logistics.\u00a0\u00a0 We challenge the APC and its leaders to contradict this information.<\/p>\n
We will like to reiterate our call on the APC to make General Buhari available for debates in Nigeria, if as the APC now claims, he performed very well during his procured speaking engagement.\u00a0\u00a0 We also wish to ask if General Buhari is now a candidate seeking election in the United Kingdom or in Nigeria, after running away from debates organized by the Nigerian media.<\/p>\n
The \u2018arrangee\u2019 Chatham House event is another ploy, like the purported London interview, to hoodwink Nigerians and prevent General Buhari from debating in Nigeria. But we insist, General Buhari must debate in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
As a party, we are happy over this latest development as it will no longer give Buhari any excuse not to debate when he returns to Nigeria. The APC no longer has any hiding place, but to put General Buhari through a similar coaching course like in the UK, to debate in our beloved country on any media of choice with our candidate, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.<\/p>\n
We would also like to take this opportunity to touch on some aspects of General Buhari\u2019s Chatham House speech.\u00a0 From the contents of the speech it is clear that General Buhari has now admitted to the fact that \u201ddemocracy is a journey\u201d.\u00a0 It is a pity that it has taken General Buhari 31 years to admit this and voice it.\u00a0 This is something that any educated leader ought to have known right from the start but General Buhari is different and is clearly lacking in that department.<\/p>\n
If he could have appreciated that point 31 years ago, he would not have betrayed his own Commander-in-Chief, President Shehu Shagari (who was a democratically elected President), removed him in a coup d\u2019etat and taken his seat.\u00a0 Yet General Buhari now appears to have seen the light. Read him: \u201cIt is globally agreed that democracy is not an event, but a journey. And that the destination of that journey is democratic consolidation \u2013 that state where democracy has become so rooted and so routine and widely accepted by all actors.\u201d<\/p>\n
We are glad that Buhari is now saying the right things but sadly it is too little and too late.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is that he went ahead to truncate that democratic journey and took Nigerians through the darkest period of the most primitive and barbaric form of military rule.\u00a0 If he were in South America or Pakistan he would have been either jailed or hung for what he did to the Nigerian people 31 years ago.\u00a0 He would have been asked to account for every drop of blood that was spilt and every violation of civil liberties and human rights that took place under his watch.<\/p>\n
We are surprised that General Buhari, after admitting that he is personally responsible for the atrocities of his military dictatorship, failed to use the opportunity of his procured appearance at Chatham House to apologise for his past role as a coup plotter, a promulgator of retroactive decrees and a brutal and unconscionable despot.\u00a0 We challenge him to tell Nigerians and the international community anything tangible that he has done in the last 31 years to consolidate democracy in Nigeria.\u00a0 Can General Buhari give what he does not have? Can he come to power through the ballot box after taking it through the barrel of a gun?<\/p>\n
Despite this boldfaced attempt to hoodwink the international community, the lying APC and their malodorous and lying spokesman Mr. Lai (or is it Lie?) Mohammed, failed to adequately brief General Buhari, who could not help but display his poor grasp of the issues in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
Specifically, General Buhari goofed when he said at Chatham House that he would draw foreign investors to Nigeria.\u00a0 If the APC and General Buhari were in sane and in their right senses, they would have known that, under President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria has become one of the most preferred destinations for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the world.<\/p>\n
We are happy that General Buhari admitted that under President Jonathan, Nigeria is now the largest economy in Africa with a GDP now valued at $510 billion and economy rated 26th in the world.\u00a0 He also admitted that \u201con the bright side, inflation has been kept at single digit for a while and our economy has grown at an average for about a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is the first time General Buhari has admitted that anything good is happening in Nigeria under the watch of President Jonathan.\u00a0 General Buhari, however, lied when he said that the Jonathan administration \u201chas created two economies\u2026one economy for a few who have so much in their tiny island of prosperity; and the other economy for the many who have so little in their vast ocean of misery.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 General Buhari should have gone further by naming those he knows who live in \u201ctheir tiny island of prosperity\u201d and who are bankrolling his presidential campaign, having told the whole world that he paid N27 million for his nomination form through a bank loan.<\/p>\n
Regrettably, General Buhari failed to admit the fact that but for the menace of terrorism which he and his party tactically support, our economy would have grown even faster and done even better.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is on record that every effort being made by President Jonathan and our gallant Armed Forces to combat the terrorists and arrest the scourge has always met a stiff opposition from the APC and General Buhari.<\/p>\n
They were against emergency rule in the north-eastern states and the proscription of the Boko Haram sect.\u00a0 The APC and its leaders have never deemed it fit to commend our military.\u00a0 This is simply due to the fact that without APC, there will be no Boko Haram and without Boko Haram there will be no APC.\u00a0 The two are linked and their relationship is like the relationship that existed between the IRA and Sinn Fein. One feeds off the other.<\/p>\n
We realise that General Buhari, who has never seen fit to apologise for any of his own un-statesmanlike utterances in the past, will continue carrying on like the proverbial ostrich with its head in the sand. General Buhari will play the ostrich and not see the glaring lies that his party, the lying APC, has woven around him.\u00a0 This is a crying shame. We shall allow that story to quietly unfold as the APC continues its rapid descent into willful delusion and self-destruction.\u00a0 No matter what they do or say we are certain that Nigerians will reject such a lying party at the polls during the March 28th elections.<\/p>\n
And after its and General Buhari\u2019s rejection at the poll, General Buhari may have to prepare to face charges of human rights abuses and criminality filed against him before the International Criminal Court on account of the 2011 electoral violence in Nigeria.<\/p>\n
According to the African Herald Express report on the issue published on February 20, 2015, Dutch lawyers\u2013 Prakken d\u2019Oliveira, a Human Rights Law Firm based in Amsterdam, said it had filed a criminal complaint against General Muhammadu Buhari at the ICC.\u00a0 Prakken d\u2019 Oliveira, led by Prof. Sluiter, Lawyer and Partner, is said to be acting on behalf of the Nigerian Northern Coalition for Democracy and Justice and two individual victims.<\/p>\n
The full version of the criminal complaint is available on the following links in two parts @ Criminal Complaint Against Gen Buhari 1 and Criminal Complaint Against Gen Buhari 2.\u00a0 The complaint, according to the report, alleges that General Buhari incited and orchestrated the electoral violence in Nigeria in 2011, which led to the violent murder of over 938 and 735 injured, many of them children, women and young men.<\/p>\n
The complaint, the report further said, \u201cpresents factual evidence including the names and descriptions of a sampling of those who lost their lives in the violence. These include youth corpers who were killed in Giade, Bauchi State in the 2011 post-election violence, namely:<\/p>\n
Agnes Anyanwu of Imo State origin; Ms Anyanwu in spite of being pregnant was gang-raped to death
\nMichael Obinna Okpokiri (NYSC No BA\/10C\/0950) of Abia state Origin
\nElliot Adowei (NYSC No BA\/11A\/0274) of Delta State Origin
\nPaul Seun Adewunmi (NYSC N0 BA\/10B\/1301) of Ekiti State origin
\nIkechukwu Chibuzor Ukeoma (NYSC No BA\/11A\/1354) of Imo state origin
\nAnslem Nkwazema (NYSC No BA\/10B\/1160 of Imo State origin
\nOlawale Tosin Teidi (NYSC No BA.10C\/1220) of Kogi State Origin
\nSule Ibrahim Akonji (NYSC No BA\/11A\/1009) of Kogi State origin
\nAyotunde Ebenezer Gbenjo (NYSC No BA\/10B\/0463) of Osun State origin
\nJehleel Kehinde Adeniyi (NYSC No BA\/10B\/0197? of Osun State origin
\nThe complaint, the report added, avers that the Nigerian electoral violence of 2011 warrants investigation and prosecution by the ICC.<\/p>\n
Indeed, international focus is on General Buhari for the 2011 post-election violence and we hope that he is brought to justice for the blood that was shed by his supporters in the violence of 2011; and, we hope he will not precipitate another round of violence in 2015 when he loses.<\/p>\n
I thank you for your attention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Peoples Democratic Party on Sunday said the All Progressives Congress ( APC ),\u00a0 squandered a Whooping N5Billion, in a desperate attempt to package General Muhammadu Buhari at Chatham House…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"\n