PRESIDENCY REACTS TO ATIKU’S ENDORSEMENT BY AFENIFERE, OHANEZE, OTHERS

PRESIDENCY REACTS TO ATIKU’S ENDORSEMENT BY AFENIFERE, OHANEZE, OTHERS

The Presidency on Sunday night described as irrelevant the reported endorsement of the Peoples Democratic Party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the February 16 general elections by some socio-cultural groups in the country.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that five socio-cultural groups including the Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) and Middle Belt Forum (MBF) had on Sunday endorsed the PDP presidential candidate for the forthcoming presidential candidate.

But, the presidential spokesperson, Garba Shehu, in a statement, dismissed the position of the groups, saying that the PDP was only hiding in the “bunker of ethnicity” to avoid its inevitable defeat.

According to him, the current scenario resembles efforts to stop Mr Buhari in 2015 by the same “characters” which failed.

The statement read in part: “The People’s Democratic Party is hiding in the bunker of ethnicity to avoid their inevitable defeat but that won’t change anything.

“The current scenario resembles efforts to stop Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 by the same characters. It is an effort to repeat the old experiment that failed in 2015.

“They failed to stop him from coming to power in 2015 and they will fail yet again on February 16.

“If all these groups are ganging up against one person, that is President Buhari, it tells you who the formidable candidate in the election is.

“This gang up they forged, one more time will change nothing. It is for the people to decide,’’ Mr Shehu said.

The spokesperson for the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, had also frowned at the endorsement of Mr Abubakar by the groups.

“Those endorsing Atiku are angry because President Buhari has chosen to relate with the masses directly and not through them, as middlemen,’’ he said.