PDP to flag off campaign in Akwa Ibom Monday

The Peoples Democratic Party will officially flag off its presidential election campaign on Monday in Uyo, the Akwa-Ibom State capital.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, made this known to journalists on Saturday.

The PDP, he said, is fully prepared for an issue-based campaign and the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, are fully “articulated” for the campaign.

He explained that the PDP intends to take campaigns to all the states, local government areas, wards and polling units across the country under the unified campaign structure as approved by the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC).

“Our campaign will be people-driven and focused on PDP and Atiku’s mission to rescue, rebuild and redirect our nation from the abysmal misrule of the All Progressives Congress (APC),” he said.

The PDP, like other parties, has spent the past weeks making preparations and appointments into different committees.

The party’s Presidential Campaign Council recently appointed 17 members as directors in the National Campaign Management Committee (NCMC).

Atiku also recently named the party’s former spokesperson, Kola Ologbodiyan, as one of his campaign spokespersons.

Amid preparations, Atiku and the party’s NWC still struggle to resolve the crisis in the party.

Briefing journalists, Mr Ologunagba said after consultations across the six geo-political zones of the country, “it became clear that Nigerians across board, irrespective of religion, ethnicity and even political affiliations accept Atiku Abubakar as the best candidate with the practical experience, capacity, broad-mindedness and willpower to unite our nation, revamp the national economy, and guarantee security of lives and property in the country.”

Some reasons he gave as to why Nigerians want Atiku is that during his time as vice president, “he achieved unprecedented national productivity, secured $30bn overall debt relief from the Paris and London Clubs, Nigeria’s economy was revamped to become one of the fastest growing economies in the world with stable exchange rate and foreign reserves rose from $2bn in 1999 to $43bn in 2007”.

“Power generation also rose from average daily generation capacity of 1,800mw in 1999 to 4,000 mw in 2007,” he said. “Our country witnessed the liberalisation of the telecommunication industry and the advent of GSM and Internet facilities in Nigeria. Nigeria achieved one of the most profitable Stock Markets in the world with an average Return on Investment of over 31%.”

Campaigns for the 2023 general election officially commenced on 28 September in line with the timetable and schedule of activities of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).