Kaduna rally: APC terrified of its record, says Atiku

**African Democratic Congress (**ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has said the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) is terrified its record in the administration of the country.

Atiku, who was reacting to a statement by the spokesman of the APC Presidential Campaign Council ( PCC), Dele Alake, accusing him and the ADC of allegedly trying to discredit the ruling party’s presidential campaign flag off in Kaduna, said alleged failures of the President Bola Tinubu administration are obvious.

The former Vice President, in a statement by the Director Strategic Communication ADC Presidential Campaign Council, Phrank Shaibu, stated while the APC says the security vehicle stationed near an APC billboard in Kaduna a “routine patrol”, Nigerians are eager to know “why a campaign billboard needed protection.”

According to him, “Dele Alake’s statement, issued at dawn today, is a desperate, hollow smokescreen from a campaign terrified of its own record. He accuses Atiku Abubakar and the ADC of a ‘devious plan,’ AI manipulation and deepfakes, yet offers no evidence linking them to the alleged letter or any fabricated video.

“This is the APC’s familiar script: make a reckless accusation, dress it up as certainty, then hope Nigerians stop asking questions. Alake should produce the evidence: names, dates and forensic findings. Until then, his ‘fake news alert ‘ is an empty political stunt.

“No conspiracy is needed to expose the APC. Its own failures are visible in every market, filling station and household. Petrol is around ₦1,400 a litre; diesel has topped ₦2,000; food inflation remains close to 20 per cent. More than half of Nigerians were living in poverty last year, according to the World Bank estimate reported by Reuters. These are the brutal consequences of an incompetent, callous and ruinous economic course. They are not fake news.”

Atiku added that the President Tinubu cannot dismiss reports that of his supporters brought into Kaduna from distant states and left sleeping on the streets. He stated that there have been reports of an accident involving APC supporters travelling from Sokoto and also from Abuja to the rally.

The ADC candidate stated that “making citizens endure long, hazardous journeys and sleep outdoors simply to create rally optics is political exploitation, not leadership. The APC cares more about the appearance of a crowd than the safety and dignity of the people it transports.

“Perhaps this also explains why Tinubu is campaigning in only 12 states. The same supporters must be moved from one rally to the next, along roads his government has left in disrepair. Those journeys will consume meaningful time.

“Tinubu knows what happens if the crowd fails to reach the next destination: he may be left addressing empty seats—or, as the saying goes, talking to the birds. A campaign that must transport its audience from state to state cannot pass off that audience as spontaneous nationwide support.

“You can hire buses, assemble a crowd and plaster the streets with billboards. You cannot hire consent. Nigerians have endured the APC’s punishing prices, shrinking incomes and broken promises. No parade, press statement or insult can conceal their growing rejection of this record.

“The APC’s failures are sweeping, painful and indefensible. Its boastful promises have collapsed into a miserable reality of expensive food, unaffordable transport and families forced to make do with less. Alake’s attack on Atiku will not reduce the cost of a meal by one naira.

“The real desperados are those clinging to power while the country burns. At the polls, Nigerians will reject this discredited record and defeat the APC. No volume of propaganda can talk the party out of the reckoning it has earned.”

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