2023: Women are APC’s most loyal supporters, Buhari declares

2023: Women are APC’s most loyal supporters, Buhari declares

Ahead of the 2023 general elections, President Muhammadu Buhari has warned the All Progressives Congress (APC) against concentrating its campaigns in Abuja.

President Buhari said this Monday at the inauguration of the Tinubu-Shettima Women Presidential Campaign Team at the State House Abuja.

He said the real war lies in far flung places away from the Federal Capital Territory.

Represented by the Chief of Staff, Professor Ibrahim Gambari, the president described women as his “most loyal and supportive” allies.

“As this launch is being hosted in Abuja, we must remember that the real war lies in far flung places away from Abuja. The task ahead lies in over 8000 wards and 774 local governments across the country, where party faithful will have to make a case before fellow citizens on our party’s candidate articulating the vision and the programme for the country.

“The campaign, therefore, should resist the temptation for it to be turned into an Abuja centric activity but establish the connection between the voting public and our presidential candidate, and for other candidates for offices throughout Nigeria, that should be the ultimate objective.

“Women have remained the most loyal and supportive group in my mission for a better Nigeria despite the challenges. They should extend this same support to our presidential candidate, Senator Bola Tinubu, and Vice-Presidential candidate, Senator Kashim Shettima,” he said.

The president said APC women must be diligent in selling the Tinubu-Shettima candidacy to the citizens by articulating the party’s vision for the country.

“Considering the strategic role women have played in APC victories, we call on you once again to begin organizing and mobilizing vigorously the electorate at all levels for APC victory at the 2023 polls through the committee in an inclusive and cooperative manner,” he said.

The president described the inauguration of the APC Women Presidential Campaign Committee as the most crucial component of the 2023 campaign, and called on “all members of this committee to take up this great responsibility as a testament of your selfless service to the APC.”

Citing available figures which put women at 47 percent (almost 40 million of the 84 million) registered voters nationwide, Buhari said:  “We must continuously co-opt and make significant inroad into these demographics and voting segments.

“Counting today, we are left with approximately with 137 days before the Presidential and National Assembly elections, which are scheduled for February 25, 2023.

“Out of the 36 states of the federation, 30 states will be holding their governorship elections on March 11. The mission that lays ahead of the committee is very clear and time is not on your side.”

Tinubu slams PDP, Dogara, Babchir

Also speaking, the APC presidential flagbearer, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, described the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as a “political party of termites.”

He said: “Our opponents spent 16 years, they had forgotten that the highway is an economy, electricity is mandatory for industrialisation. They don’t understand the transmission lines and the need for maintenance. They couldn’t make a down payment for the trail track.

“They are a political party of termites. They are in the village of lunacy. A nation is not just built on abusive language.16 years of rudderless and ditching the wool. PDP shall never come back again. Never again. Who are they? They are looters. Go out there and tell them. A new hope is here. Whether it’s from Imo state we take. Tell them today is women’s day. You are following the man who knows the way. The design on this cap is a broken shackle. We are breaking the shackle of poverty and destitution. In the last eight years, it has been a party that inherited a troublesome nation under the weight of uncertainty.

“We took over the worst pricing of crude oil but still, the very determined, focused person (Buhari) was able to bail 36 states of this country who were not able to pay salaries.”

Lalong tasks women

Also speaking, Director-General APC Presidential Campaign Council and Plateau state Governor Simon Lalong urged women to avoid character assassination, hate speech and propaganda.

He said: “Leave that to the opposition and stay with the achievements of our party in women empowerment and also tell them that under the Presidency of Bola Tinubu, Nigerian women and their children will have an even better deal.”

He urged the women to “go all over Nigeria particularly into the grassroots and sell the agenda and vision of Candidate Bola Tinubu and his running mate Senator Kashim Shettima whose pedigree for women empowerment is widely known.”

He said the presidential campaign council would monitor the activities of Tinubu/Shettima Women Presidential Campaign Team to ensure the general objectives of the PCC and the party were achieved.

In his remarks, APC national chairman, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, said with the support of women, the APC would win the forthcoming elections.

Also speaking, wife of the APC presidential candidate and lawmaker representing Lagos Central Senatorial District, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, said the Tinubu-Shettima presidency would be the “best option” for Nigerian women.

“The track record of both men (Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima) are gender sensitive,” she said.

She also called on the women to mobilise votes for the APC flagbearer in their various constituencies.

Also speaking, Minister of Women Affairs Mrs Pauline Tallen called on the APC flagbearer to allocate 40 per cent of appointments to women if he wins the elections next year.

She said with women occupying 40 per cent of appointive positions, the country would be set for a balanced leadership.

Also in attendance at the event are Governors Hope Uzodinma of Imo state, Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state, Yahaya Bello of Kogi state, APC Women Leader Beta Edu, other party  leaders, National Assembly members and others and veteran Nollywood actress, Mrs Joke Silva.

‘Dogara, Lawan impostors’

In a related development, Asiwaju Tinubu has described former  Speaker House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara and a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal and their group as a band of impostors.

Tinubu also declared that Dogara is no longer a member of the ruling party and cannot be said to be speaking for any group of APC members.

Tinubu was reacting to the outcome of a meeting convened by Dogara at the weekend with some Northern Muslim groups wherein the former speaker said they had resolved to work with their Muslim counterparts in the North to adopt one of the opposition presidential candidates in a bid to defeat APC’s same faith ticket.

Speaking through his Director Media and Publicity at the Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Bayo Onanuga, the APC presidential candidate said: “Dogara has apparently lost his mind since he could not realise his self-imposed ambition to be on the presidential ticket of All Progressives Congress.”

In a statement made available to Blueprint Monday in Abuja, Tinubu said the former speaker “has certainly become a reprobate and demagogue, delivering hate speeches and whipping up emotions, with the aim of setting our country ablaze.

“The Tinubu-Shettima Presidential Campaign Council is therefore not surprised by media reports about a meeting of some so-called Northern Christian leaders, who claimed to be members of our All Progressives Congress that were championed by Dogara and his ilks. The claim was totally fraudulent.

“Yakubu Dogara, the peripatetic and politically unstable politician who organised the meeting left our party officially and unceremoniously weeks ago. And those who attended the meeting were representing themselves, their selfish agenda, not Northern Christians.

“Before then, the former speaker had spearheaded a campaign of vitriol and hate against our party, using religion as camouflage, after he lost the vice-presidential candidacy to a better qualified Senator Kashim Shettima.”

The statement said a careful reading of the people who attended the “unholy meeting” he called also showed they were all PDP members, masquerading as APC members.

“Among the politicians at the unholy consultative meeting were Mukhar Shagari, Boni Haruna, Abdulfattah Ahmed; Damishi Sango; Senator Idris Ahmed Umar; and two former deputy governors of Kogi State, Yomi Awoniyi and Simon Achuba. They are all PDP members working for the presidential ambition of Atiku Abubakar.

“We were not surprised by the resolutions adopted. Our surprise was that the media failed to read through their smokescreen.

“The APC PCC wondered how the assembly of strange bedfellows hoped to foster unity and cohesion in our country, when their candidate represents the antithesis of the goal, having emerged the greatest divider of our polity, between the north and south.

“All Nigerians are aware that Atiku’s emergence as the PDP presidential candidate grossly violated a power rotation code between the north and the south. His insistence on snatching and retaining what rightly belongs to another political region has triggered a crisis within his party, making him run from Port Harcourt to London to mend fences.

“We want to assure Dogara and his co-travellers fanning hate campaign against our Presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his running mate, that they will fail spectacularly at the polls.

“From the engagements our leaders have had with men of all faiths, bigotry will not win next February election. What will prevail are the track records of our candidates and the solution-driven and all-inclusive progressive programmes the candidates offer Nigerians.

“Asiwaju Tinubu and Senator Shettima are going into this campaign with clear objectives to engage Nigerians across the socio-economic brackets on policy actions that will make their lives better. Our candidates will not exploit our country’s fault lines to win the election and sell religion as Kool-Aid,” he said.