Tinubu Should Contest To Be Grand Comedian Of Nigeria,Not President – Atiku’s Aide

Phrank Shaibu, the Special Assistant on Public Communications to the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has called on the ruling All Progressives Congress to replace its presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu.

In a statement on Sunday, Shaibu said the APC should replace Tinubu to avoid further embarrassing scenarios occasioned by his continued miscues and gaffes.

According to Atiku’s aide, Tinubu should only be contesting to be the ‘Grand Comedian of the Federal Republic and not Grand Commander of the Federal Republic going by his utterances’.

He said it is public knowledge that every time Tinubu has come out in public to make a statement or two, he has goofed. According to him, if Tinubu is not saying that a voter’s card has an expiration date, he is saying that young Nigerians are tweeting on WhatsApp or that 50 million youths should be recruited into the Nigerian Army and be fed with cassava in the morning, and ‘Agbado’ (corn) in the night.

Shaibu noted that Tinubu in his latest gaffe at the Lagos rally asked Nigerians to get their APV in order to vote for APC when even primary school children know that the PVC (Permanent Voter Card) is the only item that admits a voter into a polling unit.

He noted that Tinubu’s gaffes already supply comedians, skit makers, meme-makers, and TikTokers with content.

Shaibu said the APC’S seven-and-a-half-year reign is a sad reminder of Nigeria’s arrested development since 2015 when they came to power.

He said Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s claim at the Lagos rally that Tinubu will lift Nigerians out of hardship and hunger was an indictment on the APC, an admission that indeed over 133 million Nigerians now live in abject poverty as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

“Now they are selling a message of renewed hope. It is common knowledge that darkness cannot cure darkness and sickness cannot cure sickness. How can the APC be promising to fix problems exacerbated by the APC? This is balderdash,” he said.

Shaibu said that the most compelling reason for the APC to be de-registered is the fact that it has driven millions of Nigerians deeper into poverty since 2015, after spending trillions of naira ‘procuring hunger, darkness and insecurity’.

“If the APC are not keen on replacing this disaster of a candidate, they should in the alternative apologize to all Nigerians for bringing them nothing but suffering of unquantifiable proportion since 2015, and proceed to make a solemn pledge not to have anything to do with governance, especially with the February 25, election is fast approaching,” Shaibu said

“I must confess that I consider the remarks credited to the APC presidential candidate Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Saturday, November 26th, 2023 where he laboured, albeit unsuccessfully, to paint the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Candidate as ungrateful and over-ambitious as not only offensive but reckless.”

He said instead of attacking Atiku, Tinubu should have dissipated his energy on telling Nigerians about himself, ‘especially at this time when it is said at various fora that the only thing that is real about Tinubu is his person and that every other ascription on him is a borrowed robe’.

It noted that the documents released on Friday, 24th June, 2022, showed that the APC Presidential flagbearer left the columns for his primary and secondary education unmarked. But he said he obtained a degree in business and administration in 1979, apparently referring to his previous claims of attending the Chicago State University, Shaibu said.

Shaibu quoted Tinubu as saying, “I went on self-exile from October 1994 to October 1998. When I returned, I discovered that all my property, including all the documents relating to my qualifications and my certificates in respect of paragraph three above, were looted by unknown persons.”

Shaibu said Tinubu’s latest claims appear to contradict his previous election submissions, especially in 1999 and 2003 when he ran for office as a governorship candidate in Lagos. He claimed both times that he attended primary and secondary schools.