Ganduje, an unrepentant democrat, APC replies PDP

National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdulahi Ganduje has been described as a ‘committed and unrepentant democrat.’His Senior Special Assistant, Chief Oliver Okpala, in a statement, said: “Dr Abdullahi Ganduje remains an unwavering and committed democrat.”

He stated that the former governor of Kano State, “believes in the practice of democratic principles and ideals, just as he remains unshakable in his dedication to Nigeria as a nation.”

Okpala was reacting to recent criticisms by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and other opposition parties over an alleged claim, stating, “APC will capture two other states after Ondo” and reportedly credited to Ganduje at a recent stakeholders’ meeting of the party in Ondo State.

PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had in a statement portrayed Ganduje as an undemocratic personality, claiming that the APC chairman does not believe in the tenets of democracy and the rule of law.

But Okpala, in his statement, wondered how “those who have never really occupied elective positions of honour in the country could describe a man who has twice, contested and won the governorship of a great state like Kano through a democratic process, as not being a true democrat.”

He maintained that before the present democratic dispensation, Ganduje had contested and won important positions in reputable political organisations like the defunct National Party of Nigeria (NPN).  He described the PDP’s statement as the “ranting of an organisation sunk in the political ocean of misery and rudderlessness.”