The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) in Abia State has lashed out at the All Progressives Congress (APC) for declaring that it would use its January 9 mega rally in the state to announce its preparedness to take over power in the state, describing the opposition party in the state as a victim of self-delusion and gross insensitivity.

The APC had announced that President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osibajo and its National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun would grace the rally at Umuahia on Tuesday.

But in a statement issued on Sunday in Umuahia, Sir Don Ubani, state Publicity Secretary of the PDP, recalled that President Buhari made it “unequivocally and vindictively clear that Abia, having voted for former President Goodluck Jonathan in 2015 presidential election, is among the states that cannot receive more than five percent of patronage from his government. And out of sheer hatred and vindictiveness, he has not considered it necessary visiting Abia State more than 31 months after he had assumed office.”

Quoting the APC Publicity Secretary in the state, Mr. Benedict Godson, Ubani said that the only thing the President considered important was to cajole APC in the state to “express its loyalty to him and support him to run again in 2019 presidential election.”

He further stated: “Ordinarily, PDP in Abia State expected that President Buhari’s visit would have two missions. The first should be for the President to apologise to the hard-working people of the state for having grossly, purely out of incompetence, mismanaged the nation's economy and, thereby, putting the people in unprecedented hardship and suffering.

“Again, in coming to Abia State, humanity demands that President Buhari would, unconditionally, express remorse to parents and relations of the many innocent and harmless Abia youths who were brutally murdered last year on the inhuman orders of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria.

“The tears in the swollen eyes of the affected parents and relations have, no doubt, refused to ebb. A question that must be asked here, therefore, is: is President Buhari coming to apologise to us or mock us in our hardship, sorrow and tears?

“The mega rally, according to Mr. Godson, will be used to receive 'prominent politicians of Abia extraction, such as Chief Orji Uzor Kalu, Dr. Uche Ogah, Chief Chinenye Ike and others who thought it wise to join the party in the last few months.

“The PDP in Abia State does not consider this aspect as being newsworthy. This is because In Igbo traditional wisdom, the man we know too well will not marry our daughter.

“If APC feels excited that a man who has no iota of credibility, a man who laid the foundation for penury and misery in Abia State, Chief Kalu, a man that should long have been languishing in jail, is now her arrow head in Abia State, then the party must be living in sharp contradiction of all her claims against corruption and would have shown it is thousands of kilometres away from the realities in Abia State.

“The three major characters APC said it would receive next Tuesday were formerly renegades in PDP. Both their pedigree and antecedents are well known by the PDP in Abia State.

“It was only in PDP that they managed, due to the formidable machinery of the party, to have electoral value. Since Kalu, for instance, left PDP in 2007, it has been electoral failure upon failure.

“For such political derelicts to be the prime movers of APC in Abia State, PDP can as well go to sleep because Abia people know that they are only a bunch of liabilities.

“Another point Mr. Godson made, which portrays the depth of insensitivity of APC to the sensibilities of Abia political reality, is his assertion that his party does not believe in zoning of governorship in Abia State.

“This stand is a very dirty, indecent and ridiculous attempt to insult the collective intelligence of the founding fathers of Abia State.

“Abia State is a creation of the collective dreams and aspirations of the elders of the state, led by the late Premier of defunct Eastern Nigeria, Dr. M. I. Okpara. They foresaw a state where, in the absence of equity, justice and fairness, rancour and enmity would be the order of the day. They, therefore, were proactive in addressing such a situation. Their thoughts and dreams were encapsulated in a beautiful document aptly entitled Abia Charter of Equity.

“By this charter, power is designed to rotate among the different geo-political components of the State. This is to allay fear of marginalisation and guarantee peace in the polity. If they are not merely driven by mischief, it could be assumed that APC chieftains in the state have not had time to peruse the charter, or they read it with a high degree of inexplicable incomprehension.”

Furthermore, Ubani said the PDP applauded the APC spokesman in Abia State “for acknowledging and admitting that his party has no record of achievement since it came into power in Nigeria on May 29, 2015.

“Knowing that there is no substantial achievement to point out, he painfully and, I am sure, regrettably said that his party’s achievement has been the ‘provision of level-playing field for all political parties to pursue their ‘agendas’ without the fear of intimidation’. What a pity!”

He advised the APC in the state to try and come out of its cocoon, stressing that it is “painfully unfortunate and quite ironical that while Arewa Youths, Afenifere, Niger Deltans, the peoples of Middle Belt where Buhari’s Fulani kinsmen have been slaughtering them in thousands without any quantifiable measure to bring the rampaging jihadists to book, Ohanaeze Nd’Igbo, religious leaders in Nigeria, the academia, The Economist of London and even the wife of the President, Aisha, have passed a vote of no-confidence on the President, APC in Abia State is only gulibly hurrying to ask the failed President to run again in 2019 so that he could accomplish his mission of vendetta against Nigerians, especially the Igbo.”

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