Tinubu blasts INEC over APC

The plan to sabotage the All Progressives Congress (APC) is dead on arrival, the National Leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, said yesterday.

Tinubu criticised the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for, according to him, making itself a tool in the hands of those who do not want the new party to be registered.

The former Lagos governor, who fingered the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the plot, said there are fifth columnists in the electoral body conniving with the ruling party to sabotage the proposed party.

He said: “When we formulated the name of our new party, we agreed to stick to the rule of law and govern the affairs of the party democratically.

“But when the opposition saw the acceptance of APC by Nigerians, they went to the market square in Abuja to get a phoney name as African Peoples Congress. This is a fictitious name, which has never been heard anywhere before now. That baby is a stillborn and it will not survive.”

Advising the electoral body to drop the robe of “partiality”, Tinubu said if INEC must protect its integrity and show the world that it is not working in collaboration with the PDP to sabotage the efforts of opposition parties, the electoral umpire must drop its “biased” stance against the registration of the APC.

Tinubu said: “The discovery of phantom African Peoples Congress in the INEC register is a ruse and an attempt to stifle our new party. All Progressives Congress members have been holding meetings before now and nobody has come out to say there is a party somewhere with the same acronym with our party.

“The only APC we have is All Progressives Congress. There is no way you can commit abortion after the baby is born. Without collaboration with the INEC officials, there is no way anybody could make bold to say one APC exists somewhere, apart from All Progressives Congress. Nobody can successfully say that without active connivance of the PDP.

“Tell them that we are not worried because they will be put to shame. APC will be registered and it will be All Progressives Congress.”

Tinubu spoke at the inauguration of a new secretariat built by the Lagos Mainland Local Government Area in Ebute-Metta. The four-storey building is named after the former governor.

The gathering was excited when the ACN leader reacted to a comment credited to PDP national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who described his party and leaders as Barcelona and Lionel Messi.

He said: “The national chairman of the PDP said they are Messi and Barcelona; let me tell them that now, C. Ronaldo of the Real Madrid has defeated Messi and his club.”

Tinubu urged Nigerians to support APC in its efforts to rescue Nigeria from poverty and insecurity, describing the party as Armoured Personnel Carrier, the crime-fighting all-weather, all-steel militancy vehicle commonly used by the police. .

Describing the local government as the artery of development of any state, Tinubu said without local governments, there can never be connection between the state and the grassroots. He said he was proud of the achievement, of Governor Babatunde Fashola and the ACN in the state.

Tinubu said: “To the glory of God, I am proud that the local councils I created did well when I was in office. They are not doing badly under the leadership of Fashola. Those that objected to the creation of 57 local councils have been put to shame with the developmental projects the council chairmen have delivered to the people of Lagos State.

At the event were the top government functionaries, including the Secretary to the Lagos State government, Mrs Idiat Adebule, who represented Fashola, Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs Ademorin Kuye and Speaker, Lagos House of Assembly, Adeyemi Ikuforiji.

Also at the event were party leaders, led by the chairman of Lagos State ACN, Chief Henry Ajomale, Lagos Central ACN leader, Prince Tajudeen Olusi, National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, former Minister of Defence, Ademola Seriki and Chief Mutiu Are.

Mr. Oladele Adekanye, the mainland local government chairman was the host.