Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Hon. Yekini Nabena has warned supporters of different presidential aspirants of the party to desist from campaign calumny capable of demarketing whoever emerges as the candidate of the party.
Nabena, who urged the party members to avoid hate speeches and embrace issue-based campaigns rather than attacking themselves, said: “It’s too early to be unnecessarily emotive.”
While two APC presidential aspirants have made their aspirations known to the public, others are yet to declare publicly.
The APC chieftain warned in a statement on Monday that whatever negative comments made against any of those seeking the ticket of the APC now will later be used as a demonisation weapon by the opposition parties.
Nabena said since all those aspiring to fly the ticket of APC are all from the same political party, party supporters should see themselves as one and play up their advantages.
According to him, whoever emerges as the party’s presidential candidate during the primary will need to extend the olive branch to others because the party does not need a divided house if it must win an election.
Nabena expressed the belief that the party would give a level playing field to all aspirants during the primary and support whoever emerges as the party’s candidate.
The Bayelsa-born politician said: “My appeal is for all our members to embrace issue-based campaign strategies in selling whoever they feel should succeed our dear President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023. There is no need to be unnecessarily emotive about it.
“I believe that all our presidential aspirants are well qualified to pick the ticket. It is a fact that participatory democracy gives room for choices even within the same political party, as it is a practice in the APC. We should therefore engage constructively without demonising ourselves, bearing in mind that whatever we say against each other now will later be capitalised on by other political parties during the general elections.”
Nabena tasked the APC members who were already attacking aspirants against their principals to cool their tempers and embrace civility.
“It is also important not to distract both the party and some of our aspirants who are still holding one position of responsibility or the other. We should not deny Nigerians the dividends of democracy we promised by unnecessarily heating up the polity,” Nabena tasked APC members.
