The All Progressives Congress (APC) has lashed out at presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, saying no amount of propaganda will give him a shot at the presidency.
The governing party dismissed allegation by Atiku's media aide, Phrank Shaibu, that the Tinubu administration was only interested in "telling lies rather than rescuing citizens from the bottomless pit of bad governance."
APC said Shaibu berated Shaibu for calling President Bola Tinubu a liar, just as it said Atiku's spokesman ousted himself in his warped and misleading suggestion that the APC-led administration was hoodwinking Nigerians with propaganda.
In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Felix Morka, the governing party said it was not surprised at Shaibu's outburst, as he seems to be traumatised by the serial defeat of his principal.
Morka stated: "In his pathological and cynical flippancy, Atiku's Aide delved into matters he clearly does not understand or lacks the constitutive capacity to understand as a result of post electoral traumatic stress disorder (PeTSD) arising from his boss' serial electoral failure.
"Unsurprisingly, Shaibu's only 'evidence' for such an arrant conclusion is that President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has appointed more media aides than economic and security advisers, conveniently glossing over the fact that Mr. President was swift in rejiging the security architecture and repositioning the Armed Forces for optimal performance in defence of lives and property".
But in his reaction, Atiku dared the federal government to publish the landing cost of petrol as well as the pricing template being used by the government to keep the cost of petrol at less than N640 per litre.
Shaibu said the government's claim that the petroleum sector had been deregulated was a lie and that subsidy was still being paid.
He added: "The Petroleum Industry Act mandates the total deregulation of the petroleum sector. A deregulated regime has no room for price control. If the APC is saying subsidy is not back, they should explain how the petrol is still being sold at less than N650 per litre when the international price of crude oil is about $94 per barrel and the exchange rate on the I&E Window is N780/$1 and N1,000/$1 on the parallel market.
"How is it that diesel which has been deregulated currently costs about N1,000 per litre while petrol is over 25% less? A document by the Federal Account Allocation Committee as published by the media, showed that in August 2023, $275million dollars (#169.4billion Naira) was paid as PMS subsidy. Why is the APC still telling barefaced lies? "
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
Shaibu said the APC-led government had continually admitted failure by going ahead to sack and detain some of former President Muhammadu Buhari's appointees.
His words: "Tinubu claimed he wanted to cut the cost of governance and yet appointed 48 ministers out of which 10 are from his region. Yet the APC claims he is running a fair administration. This is laughable. Adams Oshiomhole even said last month that Tinubu inherited a bad situation. How can a maggot criticise the fly that gave birth to it?"
Atiku's aide asked the APC to do more on governance rather than propaganda, adding that the patience of Nigerians was already running out.
"Wale Edun said recently that the last time Nigeria's economy did well was 10 years ago. That is an admission of the failure that the APC represents. Under the watch of that blood-sucking party, poverty has reached unimaginable heights. Nigeria has even lost its crown as the largest producer of oil in Africa. What a shame," Shaibu said.
He said Tinubu ought to apologise to Nigerians for lying about a proposed meeting with United States President, Joe Biden, instead of trying to offer lame excuses.
