"BUHARI PERSECUTING DASUKI BECAUSE OF 2019"- PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said the
President Muhammadu Buhari-led government is
"persecuting and not prosecuting" former National
Security Adviser (NSA) Col. Sambo Dasuki
because of 2019 presidency.
The PDP said the ruling All Progressives
Congress (APC) and its leaders are afraid that
Dasuki, given his vast political and security
network, may be harbouring a presidential
ambition considering that the PDP has zoned its
2019 presidential ticket to the north.
PDP in a statement by its national publicity
secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said the APC is
obviously seeking to destroy the PDP so that it
could push through Buhari’s second tenure in
2019 without opposition from the PDP.
“The PDP is conversant with the sinister plan by
the APC-led federal government to completely
decimate our party by raking up all manner of
allegations of corruption against the Goodluck
Jonathan administration and leaders of the PDP
with a view to taking them to court on
orchestrated charges.
"This has also confirmed our concern that this is
the reason the federal government is persecuting
and not prosecuting, Col. Sambo Dasuki. The APC
and its leaders fear that Dasuki, given his vast
political and security network, may be harbouring
a presidential ambition, more so that the PDP has
zoned its presidential ticket to the north.
“We are aware that President Buhari has directed
security agencies to be more vicious in dealing
with our members and has continued to subtly
coerce the Judiciary to convict those being
charged to court. But what gives us joy is that
President Buhari is not God and we will not
worship him," the party said.
The PDP also said it sympathised with Buhari
and APC leaders over their "inability" to accept
constructive criticisms of their administration,
saying it was unfortunate that the APC and its
leaders, "who gleefully and unjustifiably poured
invectives" on former President Goodluck
Jonathan in the guise of playing the role of an
opposition party, would now not want to condone
criticisms.
The PDP said the APC as an opposition party
denigrated the office and person of former
President Goodluck Jonathan by "wrongly"
depicting him as ‘clueless and incompetent’
stressing that the PDP remained the most decent,
mature and constructive opposition party in
Nigeria's democracy evidenced by what it termed
great respect for the person and exalted office of
President Muhammadu Buhari.
It said it must be commended for what it
described as civil, responsible, mature and issue-
based opposition it has played, adding that the
entire world listened to President Buhari during
the Wednesday's media chat and went away with
different impressions.
“During the Goodluck Jonathan presidency,
Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, while in the saddle as
interim Deputy National Secretary of the APC, in a
post on his twitter page, described President
Jonathan as ‘lazy, docile, incompetent, clueless,
hopeless and useless leader.’ Other APC leaders
made raining abuses on Jonathan a past time.
"We did and came up with the theme of our
initial reaction that portrayed him very
appropriately as a tyrant. And for the purpose of
clarity, a tyrant is a ruler who has complete
power over a country and who uses the power in
a cruel and unfair way, which was why we
recommended the suspension of the operation of
the constitution so he can rule for the next four
years as a maximum ruler," the PDP said.