President Bola Ahmed Tinubu delivers his speech after taking the oath of office during his inauguration at Eagle Square in Abuja, on May 29, 2023. The 71-year-old succeeds 80-year-old former army general Muhammadu Buhari of the same party, who stepped down after two terms in office, leaving a country facing a sea of economic troubles and security challenges. Credit: Kola Sulaimon/AFP
By Banji Ayoola
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said on Tuesday that Nigerians who were tricked to elect the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 general elections are now regretting their miscalculation and lamenting their woes.
In a statement by its spokesman in Ondo State, Mr. Kennedy Ikantu Peretei, the party accused the APC and its allegedly inhuman government of being responsible for their suffering and agony of the last eight years.
While debunking alleged division within the APC in the state, the party’s state chairman, Engnr Ade Adetimeyin had told reporters on Monday that the PDP had gone extinct in the state following a recent defection into his party by 203 PDP councilors in Idanre Local Government Area, his home bas.
But the leading opposition party fired back in the statement saying that contrary to Adetimehin’s claim, the PDP cannot be extinct, as there are no such signs, and it will never be.
In the statement titled “Re: PDP is now extinct in Ondo State”, the party said:
“It would have been unnecessary to join issues with Mr. Ade Adetimehin, Chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Ondo State over his unguarded statements about the Peoples Democratic Party, but the need to put records straight.
“Adetimehin is probably the only person who is oblivious to the fact that Ondo State people hold his party, APC, and its inhuman government responsible for their suffering and agony of the last eight years. Especially the withdrawal of fuel subsidy and its biting effect on everybody.
“He does not realise that even those who were tricked to vote APC in the 2023 general elections are already regretting and lamenting their miscalculation that has brought about untold hardship on them and their families.
“Such a man, if he has any sense of shame and responsibility should have been on his knees begging the people for the huge misfortune masterminded by his party. To now open his mouth in a most careless manner to say “PDP is now extinct” is not only laughable but mischief of the highest order.
“Majority of the 203 Councillors Adetimehin is celebrating for joining his party have not been active in the last two cycles of elections in Ondo State. A few of them have been in the APC since 2016.
“How the defection of such characters translates to PDP being extinct can only be understood by someone like Adetimehin who is presiding over a dangerously fragmented APC in the State but deludes himself with fun-seeking decampees who tell him tales by moonlight.
“The PDP in Ondo State is unruffled by a few persons who are in a self-destruct misadventure in Adetimehin’s sinking APC ship.
“While we sympathise with such persons, it is pathetic that those who should be weeping are dancing and rejoicing. But in no distant time, reality will dawn on them that, indeed, they lived a lie all along.
“PDP cannot be extinct, there are no such signs. And it will never be.”
