Tinubu Strong, Fit For Presidential Campaigns, Kayamo Told Obi, Critics
Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, APC Presidential Candidate
By Blueprint.ng
The Director, Media and Public Affairs, Festus Keyamo, who also doubles as the official spokesperson for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has debunked claims in some quarters that former Lagos State Governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is not healthy and may soon withdraw from the race.
What Obi ‘said’
He was reacting to a comment by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, that Tinubu is not healthy and that his (Tinubu) supporters were only after his money.
“Somebody said to me that this candidate fought Abacha regime to stand still. That he even lost everything. I said, but he has two planes now. Where is his company?
“Once he comes here and gives you money, you will say Jagaban is the best candidate even when the man is not well. That’s the problem of the country.
“My brother, we are in a crisis. That’s why I’m pleading to all of us. Let us go and take back our country and run it like any other country where the leader is responsible to the people. The people can question the rascality and the behaviour of their leader. Bad behaviour has become a measure of success in our system,” Obi was reported to have said.
Keyamo speaks
But Keyamo, the official spokesman of the APC standard bearer said Tinubu is strong, healthy and fit enough for the coming campaigns across the country.
Countering Obi’s comment in a statement Monday in Abuja, Keyamo said: “We also wish to use this medium to debunk the false and misleading posts on various social media handles of supporters of Mr. Peter Obi that Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is withdrawing from the race on health grounds.
“This is nothing but a figment of their warped imaginations. Our candidate is strong, healthy and fit enough for the coming campaigns. The opposition will hear loud and clear from him soon.”
Keyamo, who is also the minister of state labour and employment, accused Obi of spreading ethnic hatred among the voters to cause chaos and then pose as the victim.
Tinubu’s campaign team was reacting to a video purportedly made by Obi, accusing Tinubu’s group of spreading a Whatsapp message calling on the Yoruba not to vote for him.
The purported message, according to Obi, forewarned the Yoruba that a vote for the former Anambra state governor would be a vote for a seaport in South-south and South-east.
But reacting to the development, Keyamo said the LP standard bearer “deliberately concocted that message and circulated that offensive video himself as a campaign strategy in order to come across as a victim of some kind of ethnic agenda, whereas in truth, he is the real agent provocateur of an ethnic agenda.”
According to the statement, “all groups supporting the APC presidential candidate and his running-mate have clear designations with well-known promoters.
“In addition, it is only messages released by the APC Presidential Campaign Council that are officially authorised and for which we take responsibility.
“We challenge Mr. Peter Obi to reveal the source and name(s) behind that nebulous WhatsApp message.
“As the take-off date for campaigns draw closer, Mr. Peter Obi has suddenly realised that Nigerians are beginning to burst his bubbles as his messages are bereft of ideas, depth and clear-cut solutions to our challenges.
“His messages are only full of false data and highfalutin jargons in what is clearly a disingenuous ruse to distract a scrutiny of his empty records as a Governor of Anambra State and nothing else, hence his easy recourse to playing ethnic card and fanning the ember of hate.
“We have it on good authority that part of the “U.S Strategy” (just like the failed “Dubai Strategy” his former boss and himself adopted in 2019) was to return to the country and spread ethnic hatred amongst the voters and cause chaos, then pose as the victim. They have just kick-started that plot by orchestrating and circulating the said video.
“We are also aware that plans are afoot by Mr. Peter Obi to fake an assassination attempt on himself and hire Labour Party boys dressed in APC caps and T-shirts to attack some Labour Party offices. It is all part of the “U.S Plan”. It is the first in a series of incendiary actions planned by this ill-prepared but desperate candidate.
“We call on all well-meaning Nigerians, irrespective of ethnic origins or political divides, to rise up and condemn these tactless tactics and cheap manoeuver by a desperate non-starter of a presidential candidate who has decided to resort to crude revisionism, ethnic jingoism and crass insensitivity with a view to whipping up undeserved sentiment to fuel his faltering ambition that is nothing but a flash in a pan.”
On Tinubu’s family origin
Also in another reaction, Keyamo lashed out at Tinubu’s critics questioning his family background.
In a conversation on a Twitter Spaces Programme organised by the ABAT (Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu) media team Sunday, the silk said the former Lagos state governor’s family has not disowned him, and anyone still raising an issue on it is fabricating lies.
Keyamo said: “We can’t stay in our houses and manufacture cock and bull stories about families. If the families you say he claims to be part of has not come out to deny their illustrious son, then what is your headache?”
On alleged falsified certificate, Keyamo said, “PDP seriously wanted Lagos and Asiwaju held firm. If he ever presented a false certificate back in 1999 and now, PDP and INEC will have feasted on it and used it in disqualifying him from contesting.”
Bullion vans in 2019
And in also in another defence, the fiery lawyer asked Nigerians to come up with evidence of the bullion vans driven to the residence of the APC national leader ahead the 2019 general elections.
“On the question of bullion van in Asiwaju’s house, if I may ask, how much was in it? Whoever makes a claim or allegation should come with proof. Bullion vans are for hire, they are not the property of anyone.
“Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is overqualified to contest for the position of the President of Nigeria as he has met the minimum qualification required by the law Section 131(d),” the minister said.
While quoting a former Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Malam Nuhu Ribadu, that Tinubu had been probed many times by the anti-graft agencies, Keyamo said the former governor should be in gulag if he had been found culpable of any corruption allegations brought against him.
“Ribadu said during his time, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu was one of the most investigated ex-governor, as seriously as the PDP wanted to bring him down if they found anything Asiwaju will have been in jail by now,” he said.
‘It’s about competence not turn’
Also speaking atthe Labour Party Leadership Retreat in Abuja Monday, Mr. Obi said next year’s poll is about competence not turn.
He spoke in a veiled reference to Tinubu’s remarks that it was his turn to to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari.
Obi said: “We will do this retreat now, after election we will do another one, election next year will not be based on ethnicity, we have had it before, it would not be on religion.
“There is no place that Christians buy things cheaper, there is no place that Muslims buy things cheaper. It will not be by my turn, it is nobody’s turn. It must not be by connection. Election next year must be based on character and trust; it must be based on competence.”
Speaking on the level of corruption in Nigeria, Obi said: “If a leader is not stealing, and the family around him are not stealing, we will reduce corruption by 70 percent. I was governor for eight years, there is nowhere money is missing.
“I am in this retreat to listen, let us put it in writing when we succeed, you must be around to say this is what we have agreed on. Even if we don’t achieve 100 percent, we must have made sacrifices.”
Welcoming participants to the retreat, LP National Chairman Julius Abure said: “Our leaders do not have what it takes to drive development. This is what has been lacking, no one is safe, insecurity has taken over something needs to be done and urgently and I am happy Nigerians are ready for the real change not like the APC change in 2015.”
He called the NLC, Trade Union Congress (TUC) and all other affiliates to join hands, saying this is an opportunity that should not be allowed to slip by.
Also speaking, NLC President Ayuba Wabba said it was time Nigerians returned to the era of being a producing nation and not consumers.
“We need to go back to production, which will tackle unemployment. Corruption is an organized crime against the Nigerian public,” the NLC boss said.
Keyamo’s ‘fallacies’
But when contacted for a reaction to Keyamo’s allegations, Obi’s media aide, Emeka Obasi, described it as fallacious.
Obasi said his “principal is not known for living fake life.”
He added: “It is a fallacy! You media people should also know when you see something fallacious. Does Peter look like someone who pretends or fakes things? What do we gain to start faking assassination attempt? Are they in anyway trying to carry out such attempt and seeking on blaming Obi for it? The public deserves to know and that’s what we should put up in the press.
“Does Keyamo know more than we know and just using this opportunity to cry wolf? What is his plan for uttering this kind of stupid statement? Does he think Obi is part of the Old Order who are always desperate for power? Whenever he says ‘Go and verify’, does it look like scheming?
“But we are aware of what Keyamo has done before. It is not out of place for him to say things like Obi is attempting to fake his assassination attempt? It is a terrible thing to say.”
