APC Campaign flag off in Jos moment of truth

The Special adviser to the APC Presidential Campaign organisation on Media, Communication and Public Affairs, Dele Alake, has described the party’s Presidential campaign flag off in Jos the Plateau State capital as the moment of truth.

Mr Alake a former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Lagos State, said the presence of President Muhammadu Buhari at the flag off is a symbolic incident that proved the naysayers and prophets of doom wrong.

He added that the choice of Jos is symbolic as it stands in the middle of the country and shows that the party will from there reach out in its bid to keep Presidential Power to all parts of Nigeria.

He disclosed that the candidate with his speech also confirmed his readiness to lead.

“Thank you very much for that question. Actually, if you didn’t ask, I was going to read it. That the president’s presence at today’s event, the flag off is very symbolic. It’s very significant, it’s very pivotal. It’s very ephocal in dispelling all these rumors and insinuations and innuendoes from the naysayers, from the rampant natural negativity all over the place, saying that the president is not in support of presidential candidate and all of that, whereas, contrary and conversely, this President has every opportunity, at every turn reiterated re-emphasized his support for not just the candidacy of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, but for the victory of his party in the 2023 polls that we are going to conduct.

He has at every slight opportunity reinforced this view. However, the naysayers, like I said, who wish evil for the party, for the candidates and for everybody, have refused to invite to accept to assimilate this President’s words.

But today all of that has been dispelled, the gloves are off and the man has shown this leadership by symbolism, by his presence there, emphatically and handing over the flag of the party to the candidate of the party, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, nothing could have been better than that. In fact that had made today’s event to be extremely superlatively successful.

You could see the crowd rose in frenzy of support, of enthusiasm and the entire atmosphere was invigorating, was exciting, was really arresting, rejecting and you couldn’t put even if you drop a pin it probably wouldn’t even touch the ground because of the tumultuous crowds that attended and trooped to the 45,000 capacity stadium for the day. What else do you want?

The primaries which we had in Jos at that time. However, I am not going to draw that parallel. The significance of Plateau State capital of Jos hosting today’s event is really not because oh, it happened there in 1993.

What happened in June 1993 was the primaries of the SDP. It was not the official flag off of the campaign of the SDP, which was led by M.K.O Abiola at the time. No. So today’s event is the official flag off of the campaign of APC.

So you can’t draw that parallel there. However, the significance of Plateau, of Jos, hosted today as propagated by the candidate himself, is that look Plateau. If you look at the map of Nigeria, it’s also in the middle of that area. It’s in the middle. So it appeals to the north, to the south, to the east, to the west. It is central.

So there is a symbolism there that are the center point of Nigeria. That is where the flag off of the APC campaign is taking off, which means from that center is going to the nooks and crannies of Nigeria. It is quite symbolic.

It’s different from if you went to a corner of the country or another remote area of the country, but this is the center and from there it is easier to begin to look at every angle of the country, look at all the problems. And don’t forget that Plateau also is an agricultural hub, is a bread basket.

We have strictly adhered to that principle of issue based campaign. And why? Because it’s natural where the party to beat our candidate is the candidate to beat it’s the front runner in this race. So it is only when you are losing or when you know that your chances are very slippery and slim, then you begin to clog at trust. And the trust in the political dispenser in the political race is Hollywood insults, abuses, exploitation and waging campaign of Calumny.

It’s only the losers that engage in that. We are not the losers, we are the winners. So we have cut strictly. We are abiding by the principle of issue based campaign. And that’s why at every opportunity, every one of us, we always hammer on the ideals that Nigerians want from our candidates.

Nigerians want a candidate to come and resolve these issues, to consolidate on the achievements and the candidate said it that today I see what you said, that he’s coming to consolidate on the achievements of President Buhari in the areas of agriculture, in power and in infrastructure.

And this you cannot deny anyway. And he says because of that foundation, the nation requires a builder to make a massive structure. Mark his words. They are very, very important and symbolic.

Now, what is he going to do? He says he’s going to assemble the best team. And you know that he is an acknowledged master of head hunting in Nigeria. Nobody does it better than him. And of course, the examples are there.

My dear brother, if you look at what happened in Jos today, the major takeaway from that event is the solidity of the unity of APC as a party. When you do a comparative analysis and with the other parties now, why do I say so?

Look at the number of governors that attended the event, apart from the President himself leading the charge, leading from the front. You had more than 17 governors and former governors attending. You had all the principal officers of the party in attendance. You had all the leaders of the party in attendance.

Not to talk of the rank and file that filled the stadium. What is the symbol of that? What is the meaning of that? That is unity for excellence demonstrated, unlike some other parties that we know now, that some governors deliberately refused to attend the campaign of their Presidential Candidate”.