…says opposition crying for loss of privileges, opportunities

The National Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sen. Ajibola Bashiru, has said that Friday’s defection of the Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri, from the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling party was a testimony to its acceptance.

Ajibola, who spoke to newsmen after a meeting with President Bola Tinubu at the Presidential Villa, equally attributed Fintiri ‘s defection to the President’s political sagacity.

Reacting to the opposition’s tirades against the ruling party, Ajibola said they were not crying for development but for the loss of privileges and opportunities.

Commenting on the Adamawa Governor’s defection, he said, “I think we saw it coming. The goal of our leader, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, is to build a pan-Nigerian political party.

“So we have a situation whereby, across the geopolitical zones in Nigeria, we have a very strong presence, and with the addition of Governor Fintiri to the APC today, I think it’s only one state in the entire Northeast that is not under the canopy of the APC.

Of course, North-Central, South-South, we have a total. So in Nigeria today, we have 30 governors in the APC, three in the PDP, one in Accord, one in the Labour Party, and one in APGA. So we believe that this is a testimony to the political acceptability of the APC, and the political sagacity of the President, Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

On the opposition’s protest against the new Electoral Act, he said: “Why I was laughing was that they were not crying for the ordinary Nigerian people, they were not crying for the development of our people. They were crying because of the loss of privilege, the loss of opportunity to continue to plunder the resources of the Nigerian people.

“President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the past two and a half years, has blocked all the leakages where some people are milking Nigeria dry. The growth of our foreign reserves from about $3 billion to $49 billion did not come out of the blue; it’s not magic. It’s because all those cesspools of corruption have actually been blocked.

“The petroleum subsidy profiteers were also part of them, and that’s why they were crying. But as they were crying, Nigerian people are happy because our country is getting better economically, our currency is performing better than possibly any other currency all over the world. The food inflation, which was overhyped at about 35%, has reduced to about 15%. So salutarily, the country is performing.

“Then two, I also find them as a committee of circus displayers, because when a law has been made by the appropriate legislative body, then you have a bunch of people who don’t even have a single elected person saying that that law should be cancelled. I think it’s more of speaking out of ignorance and out of a lack of patriotism to the Nigerian people.

They should go back to the trenches, they should go back to the Nigerian people and sell, if they have anything still remaining in terms of credibility for them, to get electoral viability.”