ABUJA Nigeria — Vice-President Kashim Shettima has likened the African Democratic Congress (ADC) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to Kenya’s veteran opposition leader, Raila Odinga, declaring that the former Nigerian vice-president would never win the country’s presidency.
Shettima made the remarks on Wednesday during the inauguration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, reports Nigerian Tribune.
The Vice-President described Atiku as a serial loser, arguing that his repeated attempts to become president would not yield success.
He drew a comparison between Atiku and Odinga, who contested for Kenya’s presidency five times without winning the country’s top political office.
Shettima also criticised the presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), Peter Obi, over his frequent comparisons between Nigeria’s economy and those of Asian countries.
He challenged Obi to present practical, homegrown solutions to Nigeria’s socio-economic challenges rather than rely on what he described as simplistic international comparisons.
“A country of over 250 million people cannot be governed through borrowed statistics and economic prescriptions detached from its peculiarities,” Shettima said.
The Vice-President, however, urged members of the APC Presidential Campaign Council to avoid inflammatory and provocative statements during the electioneering campaign.
He called for issue-based campaigns centred on policies, ideas, leadership records and competing visions for national development.
“For the rest of the duration of this campaign, we’ll discuss ideas, we’ll discuss policies, but we’ll treat all our opponents with respect and dignity. They are not our enemies. They are our brothers. They are our countrymen. They are our leaders,” he said.
Shettima said the ruling party would respond to criticisms from its political opponents with facts and reason rather than inflammatory rhetoric.
“We have the capacity to respond to all sorts of innuendos and outright lies that our political opponents are taking on. But we won’t fall into their traps. We’ll give them facts. We’ll give them statistics. We argue with reason, not with sentiments, not with exaggerated truth or fabricated lies,” he added.
