A group of youth under the auspices aof the Arewa Proactive Youth Coalition has dismissed the flag-off of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential campaign rally in Sokoto as the “latest form of MMM in town”.
Inuwa Bako, President of Arewa Proactive Youth Coalition, urged Nigerians “to be wary of PDP’s ability to transparently manage public resources when it cannot be sincere with the number of people that took part at its rally”.
His words: “The North-West rally which had the entire PDP loyalists from all over Nigeria left a 10,000-capacity stadium still empty and the mouthpieces of the party were still bereft of shame to lie that the number of people that attended the rally portends victory for Atiku (Abubakar). This is nothing but MMM whereby people were made to believe what did not exist. Anyone that allows themselves to be taken in by such scam is in for disappointing surprises.
“The PDP may be playing the ostrich, but the reality is that many people that should have attended the rally are aware that they will not hear anything new, but that they will be plied with insult and abuses against the ruling party since the PDP and its candidate are incapable of issue based campaign. The people of the North-West and other Nigerians are eager to attend rallies that are better organised, where they will be able to hear fact-based pitches from candidates, and not gatherings where actors and charlatans would be hopping on soap boxes.
“You can imagine that a party that was in power for 16 years with a candidate that was vice-president for eight years are unable to point to concrete projects or achievements to convince the electorate with. If after previously holding office for 16 years, all PDP can do is to make more promises of what it will do if elected instead of showing what it has done to be re-elected, then there is something capitally wrong with the party and its candidate.
“We have resolved that we will not allow the rural population or those with limited political exposure to be scammed by the PDP as they continue their other rallies. Arewa Proactive Youth Coalition has therefore resolved to embark on an enlightenment drive to educate people on the issues they should raise when any party approaches them with non-issue based messaging.”
