The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has dismissed the groups that recently ‘endorsed’ the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar as a gathering of ‘shameless exponents of political adventurism.’
The group said that a quick look at the leadership of these “endorsers would show that they are political jobbers, freelance activist and free-wheeling influence peddlers. It is therefore not surprising that members of the socio-cultural groups the individuals claimed to be representing have already disowned the purported endorsement.”
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke BMO said: these are men who in spite of their advanced age are known to be political middlemen who have been out of job in the last three and a half years of the President Buhari administration.
“That virtually all of them have been disowned by the core membership of the socio-cultural group they are supposed to be representing say a lot about their credibility.
“One of them Pogo Bitrus, who claimed to be the President of the Middle Belt Forum is from Borno State but is presenting himself as the leader of the umbrella body of the people of North Central Nigeria, as the name suggests.
“It is even on record that Bitrus was the leader of the Chibok community in Abuja but was removed because of his romance with the Jonathan administration at the height of the clamour for the return of the abducted Chibok girls in 2014.
“As for the Afenifere, it is clear that the duo of Pa Ayo Adebanjo and Yinka Odumakin are using the name as influence-vending franchise on behalf of a group of people they have no mandate to represent”.
BMO stated that the arrowheads of the endorsement are PDP members and sympathisers who were also in the forefront of support for the failed re-election bid of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
“This purported endorsement, which Atiku Abubakar is already celebrating, is nothing more than a case of party members backing their Presidential candidates by subterfuge, as is usual with the PDP.
“Only recently we saw the PDP faction of Ohaneze led by John Nwodo endorse Atiku Abubakar, but, few days later, the Anambra State Government and Ohaneze Youth Council led the deluge of dissenting voices which insisted that the people of South East should be allowed to vote in line with their conscience.
“As for Ango Abdullahi, the leadership of the Arewa Consultative Forum(ACF) has questioned his right to speak for and on behalf of the Northern Region.
“So these so-called Nigerian leaders and elders, led by a known PDP Chieftain, Edwin Clark that claimed they opted for their party’s Presidential candidate because he is ‘capable’, are clearly not representing anybody aside from themselves.
“And just like in 2015, the fake endorsement is dead on arrival because the people who matter and who heartily received President Buhari at campaign rallies across the country are ready to make their votes count on February 16 by giving him a resounding victory”.
BMO said it is convinced that the gathering was a last ditched effort to shore up PDP’s flagging Presidential campaign.
“The weekend gathering of spent political forces came soon after the biased, unscientific endorsement of Atiku Abubakar by ‘The Economist’, and timed to also coincide with the release of a skewed newspaper survey showing that the PDP Presidential candidate will win the Presidential election by a slim margin.
“All these are as a result of panic in the Atiku camp and do not represent the true reality on the ground, from Sokoto to Lagos and from Maiduguri to Uyo”, BMO said.
