The Atiku/Okowa Presidential Campaign Organisation has frowned at the endorsement of the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu by South West political leaders.

The South West leaders on Saturday in Akure, gave their blessing to Tinubu’s presidential aspiration with the leader of the Afenifere, Pa Reuben Fasoranti, praying for the success of the APC candidate in the 2023 election.

But the Atiku campaign, in a statement on Monday by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, described the endorsement as a “failed attempt to procure reputable South West leaders to support his tottering and self-seeking presidential ambition”.

Repudiating the endorsement further, Ologbondiyan said: “Nigerians watched with dismay as the APC presidential candidate resorted to playing ethnic card at a session he organised at Pa Reuben Fasoranti’s house in Akure, Ondo State, at the weekend, in a bid to divert attention from his numerous anti-people issues and use the unsuspecting leaders to create an impression of having secured the endorsement of the South West.

“Our electoral process is badly scandalised by report in the public space that the APC has been making huge financial overtures to some leaders to create factions in certain credible Pan-South West organisations and use such procured factions to pronounce support for the APC presidential candidate.

“The very thought by the APC Presidential Campaign to compromise the leaders of the South West is to say the least, reprehensible, atrocious, sacrilegious and shows the extent of disrespect, irreverence and disdain the APC has for such revered leaders,” the statement added.

The Atiku campaign said Asiwaju Tinubu cannot sway or buy the South West or any other part of the country.

The statement added that the South West and other sections of the country were holding Tinubu directly responsible for the woes the nation has been passing through in the last seven and half years of the APC administration; “an administration Asiwaju Tinubu confessed to have helped install.”

Continuing, it said: “Moreover, Asiwaju Tinubu cannot be trusted by the South West or any part of the country for that matter as his persistent self-centered assertions and barefaced entitlement messaging demonstrate that his presidential ambition is driven by the pursuit of personal aggrandizement and not to serve the people.

“It is clear that majority of the people of the South West have rejected the APC Presidential candidate and cannot fall to APC’s trickeries. This informs why the APC lost woefully in the July 16 Osun State governorship election to the PDP; a state considered to be Asiwaju’s ancestry home.

“The people of the South West are knowledgeable; they are egalitarian; they know what is in their best interest and Asiwaju Tinubu’s life ambition does not represent that.

“If anything, Asiwaju represents all the woes, miseries, agonies, pains and desolations brought to our country by the APC administration.

“This is why the South West and other regions of the country are rallying with the presidential candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, who represents the hope of Nigerians in their collective determination to rescue and rebuild our nation from the ruins caused by Asiwaju Tinubu’s APC administration,” the campaign group added. (The Nation)

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