Rebrand or go down, APC tells PDP

The All Progressives Congress on Friday dismissed the communiqué issued by the Peoples Democratic Party’s National Caucus on the state of the nation, describing it as a rehash of the opposition party’s ‘infantile whining which will not save it from going down unless it urgently rebrands.’

The party, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Muhammed, said it was time for the PDP to take a long, hard look at itself in the mirror and improve itself rather than dwell on trivial issues.

It added that the PDP cannot continue to do things in its trademark old ways and expect a different result.

APC said, ‘’The PDP just doesn’t get it, despite being the architect of its own fall from power. The days of winning elections with the aid of slush funds, brigandage, deceit and rigging are gone forever, hence it must return to the drawing board to fashion out decent and empirical ways of repackaging and selling itself to Nigerians, just like the opposition did when they decided to come together.’’

The party noted that the PDP’s attack on the judiciary would fetch it nothing but political grief.

APC added, ‘’Instead of a blanket and unsubstantiated accusation against the judiciary over the election petition tribunal rulings in Rivers and Akwa Ibom, the PDP would have shown itself to be a serious party if it had provided statistics on how many of the cases filed at the various election petition tribunals nationwide, after the 2015 elections, have so far been decided in favour of the PDP and the APC, so that Nigerians can see whether the PDP has not won any single petition or whether all the cases have been won by the APC.”

It further said the PDP took itself to court in 2007 over the governorship election in Rivers State, stressing that the same judiciary that had become an apparition to the PDP awarded the governorship election to a candidate whose name was not on the ballot because the party had substituted his name.

‘‘Then, the PDP did not see the judiciary as being used by the then PDP administration, neither did the opposition castigate the judiciary,’’ it said.

The APC advised the opposition political party to engage in strategic thinking that could propel the party forward, rather than continue to be nostalgic about its past.