*His power-grabbing speech is recipe for violence, Tanko posits
Chuks Okocha in Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, yesterday, described the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, of being desperate to become president by hook or crook.
This is as the chief spokesperson for the Labour Party (LP) presidential campaign council, Yunusa Tanko, has said the speech of power grabbing by Tinubu in London recently was capable of propelling massive violence in the 2023 general election.
In a statement by a spokesperson of the PDP presidential campaign Management Committee, Senator Dino Melaye, the party said, “the desperation of Tinubu to be President of Nigeria at all cost, by all means and by crook and hook, was eloquently evidenced in this his charge during his woeful outing in London.”
He said a man, who played dumb, when asked critical questions on governance, suddenly roared into vibrancy threatening to snatch power.
Melaye then asked: “How else will power be snatched through the ballot box if not a resort to violence, electoral violation, and other unorthodox methods of grabbing power.
“It is now very clear why Tinubu refused to sign the Peace Accord. The international community, security agencies, and lovers of Nigeria’s democratic advancement are invited to do all that is necessary to forestall the power ambush and electoral mines that Tinubu is planting.
“Even in the days of military rule, a little persuasion was employed in political communication. Politicians, who truly want to serve will not insist on breaking the rules to ascend to power. The grand plot of Tinubu and APC to compromise the 2023 election is unabashedly expressed here,” Melaye stated.
Corroborating Melaye, Tanko, who spoke in an interview with journalists in Abuja, after examining Tinubu’s speech, where he declared that political power should be “grabbed and you run away with it, said, “this coming from a presidential candidate is too unpresidential, gentlemen of the press. How can a man, who wants to govern over 200 million Nigerians use such words.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate to go to a civilised clime and start talking about power grabbing in a UK restaurant for that matter and I very much doubt whether the APC presidential candidate, has even bothered to sign the peace accord for 2003 polls.
“If he has done it, then, his vituperations on grabbing power come what may, is uncalled for, because this is capable of making his supporters have that mindset on using violence to deliver votes.
“Elections must be conducted in violence-free environment and Tinubu saying things like this is really unpalatable barely three months to the presidential election. It’s saddening to hear one of us, the most experienced politicians in Nigeria, talking in this manner and people were clapping and hailing him,” he stated.
