Stop whining, rebrand or go down - APC tells PDP

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed the communique
issued by the PDP National Caucus on the so-called political
developments in the nation as a rehash of the opposition party's
infantile whining which will not save it from going down unless it
rebrands most urgently.

''It is time for the PDP to take a long, hard look at itself in the
mirror and change everything that is ugly about the party, instead of
wasting its energy and time on irrelevancies,'' the party said in a
statement issued in Lagos on Friday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

It said the PDP cannot continue to do things in its trademark old,
crooked ways and expect a different result.

''The PDP just doesn't get it, despite being the architect of its own
fall from power. The days of winning elections with the aid of slush
funds, brigandage, deceit and rigging are gone forever, hence the PDP
must return to the drawing board to fashion out decent and empirical
ways of repackaging and selling itself to Nigerians, just like the
opposition did when they decided to come together,'' APC said

The party said the PDP's ceaseless and ill-advised attack on the
judiciary, now its favourite whipping boy, the endless put-down of
government agencies and the demonization of everyone but itself will
fetch the party nothing but political grief.

''Instead of a blanket and unsubstantiated accusation against the
judiciary over the election petition tribunal rulings in Rivers and
Akwa Ibom, the PDP would have shown itself to be a serious party if it
had provided statistics on how many of the cases filed at the various
election petition tribunals nationwide, after the 2015 elections, have
so far been decided in favour of the PDP and the APC, so that
Nigerians can see whether the PDP has not won any single petition or
whether all the cases have been won by the APC.

''The PDP has forgotten that the same judiciary that it is willfully
castigating today had decided many election petitions in favour of the
party and against the APC, whether at the Governorship, National
Assembly or State Assembly levels, and the ruling party has not opted
to bring the whole house crashing down on everyone just because of
that.

''Going down the memory lane, when the PDP took itself to court in
2007 over the Governorship election in Rivers, the same judiciary that
has now become an apparition to the PDP awarded the Governorship to a
candidate who never even featured on the ballot because the party
crookedly substituted his name. Then, the PDP did not see the
judiciary as being used by the then PDP Administration, neither did
the opposition castigate the judiciary,'' it said.

APC admonished the PDP to stop yowling and engage in strategic
thinking that could propel the party forward, rather than continue to
be nostalgic about its past, which is neither dignifying nor
enlivening.

''The 16 years of the PDP - which the party has continued to
shamelessly celebrate - are nothing to celebrate, either for the
impunity that characterized the party's governance, the massive
looting of the national treasury that is still being assessed or the
bastardization of all the values that the nation holds dear.
Thankfully, President Muhammadu Buhari has brought sanity to
governance even as the PDP has continued to try to distract him with
their endless wailing.

''Our parting word for the PDP: Stop throwing juvenile tantrums
against everyone, especially the judiciary. Stop wasting your energy
on frivolous accusations. Learn how to communicate your thoughts to
Nigerians in a more civilized way and put your shoulder to the wheel
if you want to reincarnate as a force to be reckoned with in our
country's political firmament,'' APC said.