{"id":13935,"date":"2018-12-18T09:44:50","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T09:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13935"},"modified":"2018-12-18T09:44:50","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T09:44:50","slug":"atiku-tackles-buhari-over-comments-to-iri-ndi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=13935","title":{"rendered":"Atiku tackles Buhari over comments to IRI, NDI"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nBy Paul Ibe,\u00a0<\/b>Media Adviser to HE Atiku Abubakar<\/b>\n<\/div>\n
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We Urge The IRI, NDI To Focus On The Evidence And Not On Buhari\u2019s Deceitful Words<\/b><\/div>\n
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\n\u00a0<\/b>Our attention has been drawn to a personal statement by President Buhari himself wherein he claimed that he would give his opponents in the 2019 elections the level playing ground which the Peoples Democratic Party denied him.<\/b>
\nSpeaking to a delegation from the International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute, President Muhammadu Buhari said, \u201cI am prepared to give the opposition the opportunities I was not given in the past.\u2019\u2019
\nLet us now factually address that comment.
\nPresident Muhammadu Buhari ran for the office of the President of Nigeria in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 under the PDP. Not once during those intervening years was he arrested, molested or persecuted in any way, shape or form.
\nAs a matter of fact, immediately after his experience with Boko Haram terrorists in Kaduna on July 24, 2014, the then PDP administration bought Mr. Buhari a $300,000 dollar armoured and bombproof SUV for his protection. Mr. Buhari received the vehicle which helped save his life.
\nNever were Muhammadu Buhari or his relative\u2019s accounts frozen by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission or any other government agencies under the PDP and never were his running mates, children, friends and family targeted.
\nMuhammadu Buhari participated in several protests and marches, including the Occupy Nigeria movement and the 2014 APC march in Abuja and was not arrested or persecuted by the PDP.
\nFurthermore, the PDP ensured that the Independent National Electoral Commission was independent and appointed disinterested individuals to its board including Prof. Attahiru Jega, who then President Jonathan had never met before his appointment.
\nThe PDP also ensured that vital government agencies like the National Bureau of Statistics were not politicised, whether or not their reports favoured the government.
\nHowever, since coming to office, President Muhammadu has refused to reciprocate the good treatment meted out to him by the PDP and has instead persecuted, harassed and attempted to intimidate his likely opponents, even before they became candidates.
\nTheir businesses have been affected with the government either pulling out of or attempting to pull out of commercial contractual agreements freely entered into between government agencies and businesses owned or partly owned by perceived presidential opponents.
\nAlso, in a bid to intimidate the Presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar\u2019s plane was invaded by a crack combined military team on November 11, 2018. That was unprecedented in Nigeria\u2019s history and never occurred even under military rule.
\nOpposition presidential candidates who participated in peaceful marches have been arrested and are currently facing trial. Others were set up by government agencies including the Code of Conduct Tribunal and were tried until the government\u2019s case collapsed at the Supreme Court.
\nThe account of the Vice Presidential candidate of the PDP was frozen even as opposition Presidential candidates were falsely accused of involvement in armed robbery and when the government\u2019s case was falling apart, their main suspect suspiciously and suddenly died in police custody.
\nAn opposition candidate on the verge of winning an election was strangely charged for examinations malpractices and his win was overturned.
\nSadly, on Monday the 17th of December 2018, in a Freudian slip during a live TV interview, Garba Shehu, the President\u2019s spokesman, revealed that President Buhari had ordered the National Bureau of Statistics to fudge the latest unemployment numbers seeing as they do not favour the government so close to an election.
\nThis is even as the President has refused to sign the amended Electoral Act knowing that the Act would prevent the government from rigging the elections.
\nBut the most telling action by the President was his attempt to foist his own biological niece as the Chairman of INEC but for the uproar of the opposition backed by the international community.
\nThese and other actions completely contradict President Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s assurances and we thus urge the International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute not to be hoodwinked by the President\u2019s deceptive words, but to focus on what cannot lie – the evidence.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Ibe,\u00a0Media Adviser to HE Atiku Abubakar We Urge The IRI, NDI To Focus On The Evidence And Not On Buhari\u2019s Deceitful Words \u00a0Our attention has been drawn to a personal statement by President Buhari himself wherein he claimed that he would give his opponents in the 2019 elections the level playing ground which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13154,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13935\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}