The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has slammed former Vice President Atiku Abubakar over his call that opposition parties merge to defeat the ruling party in the next presidential election.
The APC said Atiku, the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 presidential election, and his party failed at the polls since 2015 and have failed to offer credible opposition to Nigerians.
Atiku, on Tuesday, when he hosted the national executive committee of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) in Abuja, had expressed concerns that Nigeria was moving towards a “one-party dictatorship” state and called on other opposition parties to come together to defeat the ruling APC.
However, in a statement on Wednesday, APC’s spokesman, Felix Morka, said, “It is pitiful that a statesman of Atiku’s standing would so easily conflate the wide acceptance of our great party among Nigerians with his irrational fear of one-party dictatorship.”
“Remarkably, Atiku and his PDP have not only consistently failed at the polls, they have proved incapable of offering a credible alternative political vision as expected of an opposition party.
“We urge Atiku to concentrate on repairing his damaged political psyche and attempt to revive his comatose PDP and leave APC out of their combined predicament. However, we welcome the former Vice President’s charge to opposition political parties to rally together to engage in opposition politics,” the statement partly read.