PDP Dismisses Cameroonian Citizenship Claims As APC’s Diversionary Tactics

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed as
diversionary, claims by the All Progressives Congress (APC) that
Alhaji Atiku Abubabar is a Cameroonian and not a Nigerian.

Describing the claims as reckless and groundless, the PDP
accused the APC of calculated attempt to trivialise and divert
attention from the compelling issue of governing party’s alleged
criminal rigging of the 2019 presidential election.

Atiku, who was the candidate of the PDP in the February 23
presidential election, had dragged President Muhammadu Buhari who
won the election to the tribunal seeking to upturn the poll
verdict, as announced by the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC).

In a statement Sunday by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the
PDP said the Cameroonian tag on Atiku was a disingenuous and woeful
design by the APC to overburden, distract and bog down the
presidential election petition tribunal with trivialities, lies and
falsehood, so as to derail the course of justice.

The statement said, “Such diversionary tactic has however only
helped in further exposing the fact that the APC has no answers to
the plethora of overwhelming evidence before the tribunal that the
election was won by Atiku Abubakar and the PDP.

“Whereas Atiku Abubakar’s citizenship by birth, even under our
constitution, cannot be contested, it is indeed the biggest irony
of the year, that Atiku’s citizenship is being disputed by
individuals whose ancestry has always been a subject of debate.

“These individuals include those who, being not sure of their
origins; have no love for Nigeria and even refused to be on the
side of our nation at the 1985 summit of the defunct Organization
of Africa Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa.

“Such persons prefer to deploy our national resources for
infrastructural development in affiliated places outside the shores
of Nigeria, when our country is in dire need of attention.

“The apparent links were further manifested in the participation
of aliens in the campaigns of a particular Presidential candidate
in Kano.

“Moreover, this claim by APC appears to contain explanations as
to why its administration has remained insensitive to the challenge
of insurgency, general insecurity and economic travails of
Nigerians in the North East, particularly in Adamawa, Yobe, Borno
and Taraba states.

“In any case, Nigerians should not despair as the PDP and Atiku
Abubakar will not be distracted in the pursuit of our mandate. The
PDP has implicit confidence in the competence of our legal team to
handle the diversionary antics and technicalities of the APC to
unnecessarily overstrain the tribunal and derail the course of
justice in the matter”.