PDP fumes over denial of access to campaign venue

The decision by the authorities of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to deny the Presidential Campaign Council of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the use of its facilities for political rally, has heightened the animosity between the main opposition party and President Muhammadu Buhari.

The PDP had booked and paid for the use of the Old Parade Ground, located in the Garki District in the capital city a few days ago, for the purpose of holding the party’s presidential campaign rally, originally billed to hold on Saturday.

However, 24 hours before the scheduled event, the authorities of the FCT, managers of the facility, informed the leadership of the PDP that the Old Parade Group would no longer be available for the use of the party.

This has forced the PDP to shift the proposed rally and await approval from the authorities of the FCT for another date, which was yet to be determined as of Saturday.

At a media briefing in Abuja Saturday, the spokesman for the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, accused President Muhammadu Buhari of being behind the party’s travails.

Ologbondiyan said the action signified a morbid fear of the rising profile of the PDP presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar by President Muhammadu Buhari and the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).

According to him, the shutout was part of the last kicks of a dying horse, which he said the Buhari Presidency now represents.

The PDP spokesman said, “It is part of the plot by the frustrated President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC to drag the PDP and the people’s candidate to their low level of frustration in order to enmesh the coming election into crisis so as to achieve their self-succession bid.

“We invite the world to note that this latest assault against the people’s candidate is also borne out of direct ill-will and hatred against him by President Muhammadu Buhari as well as his handlers, who have sought all ways to drag him down, since they realized that Nigerians have reached a consensus on Atiku Abubakar, as the next President of our country.

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“Atiku Abubakar, being a true democrat and statesman has decided to go with the people in their collective quest to rescue our nation from the vengeful, divisive, violent prone, insensitive, completely incompetent and inherently corrupt Buhari administration”.

The main opposition party cautioned President Buhari and the APC, saying that with the level of consensus Atiku enjoys throughout the country and even across the world, any assault on him is a direct assault on the overall aspiration and sensibilities of Nigerians as a whole.

The PDP spokesman declared that the more the Buhari Presidency attacks the ‘people’s candidate’, the more his support base among Nigerians expands.

Ologbondiyan warned that any further attack on PDP campaign will attract very dire response from Nigerians, who he said, look up to Atiku to salvage nation from the social, economic and political despondency, which he said President Buhari has plunged the country into.

“From reports reaching us, it is not also out of place for the Buhari Presidency and the APC to use this measure to test the will of Nigerians as precursor to their rigging plots.

“We want to place on record, once again that any attempt to rig the February 16 election will be vehemently resisted by Nigerians, across board, who have reached a consensus to rescue their nation from the stranglehold of the Buhari Presidency.

“In any case, let it be known to President Buhari and the APC that the PDP and the people’s candidate will definitely hold our Presidential mega rally in Abuja irrespective of any further encumbrance they may attempt to foist.

“Nigeria belongs to all of us and nobody can stop us from exercising our constitutionally guaranteed right of holding our rally in the FCT or any other part of our country for that matter”, Ologbondiyan declared.

Asked why the PDP did not apply to use the much bigger and spacious Eagle Square, located close to the federal secretariat, Ologbondiyan said the party had applied for the facility but that the FCT authorities said the venue was not available for use.