2023: PDP can’t return to power in free, fair election – APC

The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday in Abuja said the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) cannot return to power in a free and fair election in 2023.

The National Secretary, of the APC Caretaker and Extra-ordinary Convention Planning Committee (CECPC), John Akpanudoedehe, said this during a meeting with the party’s state caretaker chairmen.

The National Chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, had said APC would not survive 2022.

Mr Akpanudoedehe said the electorate were intelligent and now knew that the PDP had nothing to offer Nigerians going by its antecedent.

The APC scribe added that the PDP was not an alternative to the APC in the forthcoming 2023 general election.

He said the achievements of the APC-led administrations at the state and federal levels ”were glaring”, adding that the PDP had no chance of convincing Nigerians to contemplate voting for it.

Mr Akpanudoedehe said that the sponsoring of some youths by fifth columnists and opposition agents to infiltrate and disorganise the APC had failed.

He thanked the party’s state caretaker chairmen for being statesmen in their respective states and “for standing up against youthful exuberance”, noting that “Nigerian youths were very brilliant and resourceful”.

Mr Akpankudohede described Mr Ayu’s claim that the APC would not survive 2022 as false.

“I learnt that the new PDP chairman made a prophecy that we will scatter before April 2022.

“Let me send a message to PDP, if we are talking about replacing APC, it can never be the PDP because Nigerians are too intelligent.

“Nigerians will still choose APC; talk is cheap, even when they sponsored crisis throughout Nigeria, we won most by-elections.

“We inherited insurgency and we have dealt with it.

“As we speak, not one inch of Nigeria’s territory is being taken over by any group; when PDP were in government, they took over everywhere, but today, it is different,” he said.

The APC scribe said the successes recorded against insurgents, bandits and other criminal elements “showed that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration was working for the well-being of Nigerians”.

“Maybe because the president is not the talking type, I am challenging anyone to show me any social intervention programme better than this government.

“People are collecting alerts for COVID-19 palliatives, youths, women, civil servants are collecting it,” Mr Akpanudoedehe stated.

Earlier in his remarks, the Caretaker Chairman of the Delta State APC Chapter, Jones Erue, who spoke on behalf of others, said they came to express their absolute loyalty to the Governor Mai Mala Buni-led CECPC.

He pledged the support of the APC State Caretaker Committee Chairmen to the Buni-led CECPC, adding that they would not accept any attempt to destabilise and change the party’s leadership unconstitutionally.

“We don’t know the youths who claimed to have changed the leadership of the party, they are not part of us,” he said.

Mr Erue said the APC State Caretaker Chairmen were determined to ensure that the APC won all future elections at the federal, states and local government areas.

He said the APC was greater than any individual, adding that its members should note that the party had mechanisms for checking agents of disorder.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that APC State Caretaker Chairmen had earlier passed a vote of confidence on the Buni-led CECPC.

(NAN)