The presidential campaign is heating up further with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) describing the vice presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Kashim Shettima as the “grand commander of bandits”.
Senator Dino Melaye, a spokesperson of the PDP Presidential Campaign Management Committee, in a statement, alleged that Shettima was aiming at establishing an office for the Boko Haram terrorists at the presidential villa if the APC presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu wins the election in 2023.
But in a swift response, a spokesman for the All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Council, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, described Senator Melaye’s comment as nonsensical.
“Dino Melaye’s outburst is absolute nonsense. These are nonsensical words, spoken on behalf of a nonsensical man, who us running a nonsensical campaign,” Fani-Kayode said.
Melaye’s words: “Overwhelmed by the conviviality of a civil atmosphere, Kashim Shettima, the Grand Commander of bandits and the running mate of the Presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), who has gathered enough funds from his field soldiers to be so intoxicated as to engage in a verbal gibberish that is only permissible in Sambisa Forest.
“He has been seen in a footage where he was exciting a rented crowd with whimsical pot shots at His Excellency Atiku Abubakar.
“It was the same hallucination that made Shettima to have defined an illusory presidency where he would create an office for Boko Haram in the villa, with him in charge of the security of our precious Nigeria.
“The emergence of the garrulous, intemperate and indecorous Shettima is another manifestation of the failure of APC, which after weeks of shilly-shally to fill the slot of a running mate ultimately settled for a rustic jejune whose concept of a suit is the sartorial equivalence of Babanriga”.
The main opposition party in the country also called on Nigerians to critically assess the former Borno State governor and the ruling party before casting their votes in 2023.
According to the party, in a decent country, Shettima “ought to be in jail to pay for the blood of innocent citizens and the deprivation that lawful Nigerians have suffered from his private army.
“Nigerians must reject Shettima and his gang, because as Bob Marley sang, no one can free us but ourselves”.
Asked for his response to Melaye, Fani-Kayode, said,
“The allegation against Shettima is absurd, it is designed to terrify the people and make them feel that APC is a party of terrorists and that our candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, is a man that condones terrorism. Dino’s statement is a direct attack on the Vice Presudential candidate. It has no bases.
“The assertion that Dino Melaye is making is the consequences of the failure of his candidate’s campaign within and outside Nigeria. They went to America, they went to France, they went all over the world, crawling in the corridors of those in power in the places they went and nobody was prepared to see them or discuss with them.
“So, they are drowning fast and instead of focusing on the issues and stay at home … the way our candidate (Tinubu) is going, what they are doing is throwing stones, hauling bricks at us, insulting us and making absurd claims about our presidential candidate and our vice presidential candidate.
“But let me remind them that at the end, it is Nigerians who will decide. It will not be decided in Paris or Washington or Dubai, it will be decided by Nigerians. All I want them to know is that we are going to defeat them at the polls and that is what matters to us.
“This allegation has been investigated over and over again. All these while there have been no evidence adduced to suggest that it is true and actually it is not true.
Senator Kassim Shetimma is a refined, decent and godly man, who simply want to help his nation and ensure we move forward as a people. If you look at his record in Borno State as a governor, before he went to serve as Senator, you will see what he did. If you look at his successor in office – Prof. Baba Gana Zulum, he too is doing a great job in Borno. That is not a legacy of a terrorist.
“What we have in Borno is a legacy of a great leader, that is what Shetimma stands for. For anybody to try to smear his name this way, is a reflection of that person more than anything else. Not only was it a reflection of Melaye himself, it is also a reflection of the man he is speaking for.
“I can tell you that Atiku Abubakar is a trait of, who continuously betrayed everybody that has worked with him, including President Obasanjo, late Gen. Yar’Adua, late President Yar’Adua, including APC and the PDP.
“His record of public office is betrayal. At the end of the day, he’ll betray PDP again. You remember, he betrayed the governors of his party. He broke his words and Dino Melaye is saying this is the man that should be President of our country. No way.
“The truth is that Kashim Shetimma is 100 times a better man and we will prove that at the polls. We will defeat Atiku even in his local government area in Adamawa state by the grace of God.”