"I don't think APC will survive after 2023. We are going to vote them out and by the time we vote them out, they will be dead."
Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, has said the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, will not survive the general election in 2023.
He said the APC which he described as an "alliance of convenience" is not a real political party and will collapse after the forthcoming presidential elections in February.
He said this during the inauguration of the PDP National Youth Campaign Council in Abuja on Thursday.
The former vice president said the PDP is the only political party in Nigeria and that the APC, which has been in power at the federal level since 2015 "is merely an alliance between CPC and Tinubu's party."
"And we have seen how alliances die in this country," he said. "I don't think APC will survive after 2023. We are going to vote them out and by the time we vote them out, they will be dead."
Atiku, who was a member of the APC between February 2014 and November 2017, further mocked the ruling party and the way it has, in the last seven years, managed the country's unity and resources.
"We don't expect any change anywhere in the next five or six months... PDP will give you the opportunity to be anything you want to become no matter your poor background. Even though Atiku goes, another Atiku will come," he said.
Inauguration
Atiku charged the newly inaugurated National Youth Campaign Council, drawn from the six geo-political zones to take his message of hope down to the nooks and crannies of their wards and local governments and inspire in them his agenda of "resetting and rescuing Nigeria from the doldrums APC stands for".
In his goodwill message, the PDP's Vice Presidential candidate, Ifeanyi Okowa, said Nigeria is in distress in the hands of APC and the country is in dire need of a 'Chief Medical Consultant' - Atiku - to be revived.
He said the task of reclaiming Nigeria from years of misrule by APC rests on the Nigerian youth to make the right choice by voting in Atiku.
"I have the opportunity to go through the list of members of the PDP Presidential Youth Campaign Council and I am encouraged that there is a great future for this country."
"That great future is, however, based on the fact that PDP will take over in 2023 and we will rescue our nation and make it recover from the bad governance of APC."
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Similarly, the Deputy National Chairman (North) of the PDP, Umar Damagun, who represented the National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, charged the youths to seize the opportunity offered by the PDP to create the change that Nigeria truly deserves.
He also urged the council to eschew violence and not "behave like the youths the APC is grooming for the country."
Also present at the inauguration were the Director-General of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation, Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State; the Deputy Director General of Operations and former Governor of Cross Rivers State, Liyel Imoke, and a member of PDP Board of Trustees, Raymond Dokpesi.
Others were the former governors of Adamawa and Imo states, Boni Haruna, and Emeka Ihedioha, respectively.
