By Nasir Kura
National chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Adams Oshiomhole, said on Friday that the party’s 2019 campaigns would focus on character and integrity of the key candidates.
Speaking to State House correspondents after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House in Abuja, Oshiomhole said the APC was fully ready for the campaign.
He said the APC would commence its campaign on November 18, 2018 because the party is planning a big rally to present its candidates to Nigerians.
He said: “We are fully ready, we have done with our primaries and filled our nominations. As you know, INEC still has a window between now and first day of January to deal with issues of substitution. As of campaigns, we are ready.
“We are going to announce the date and programme for our campaigns, and speak to the issues. My idea of kick off will be the day we will do our first presidential rally where Mr. President as our candidate and other candidates, party leaders will assemble in a venue that will be agreeable to all of us.
“There will be two sets of messages. One, on what we have done in the past, without failing to remind people of where we were before, what we are going to do in the next three years, and a couple of things we believe we will be doing differently.
“Why we are a better choice? President Buhari if compared to the rest of the aspirants, there is no basis to compare day and night. The real issue in this election is not going to be religion. It is not going to be about political party, central to the issue and given our past experience as a country, we know that what makes a difference is the character, the issue of integrity of the candidates.
“All those issues of character, especially looking at the past, the key candidates in the election are not strangers to governance, they are not even strangers to this villa, so we will be able to ask a couple of questions about what do they know now that they didn’t know then when they had power.
“As they have reunited with their old master, we will be remind them by just quoting themselves what they are able to say to each other with regards to even the treasury of this country. This edition is going to be focusing on character, integrity of those who want to govern us. In addition to what and how they will do things differently.”
The APC chairman also dismissed allegations of corruption against him by Senator Shehu Sani who accused him of collecting bribes up to $2 million to manipulate the senatorial primaries of Kaduna Central zone.
