By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – As the activities and mobilisation towards 2023 general election intensifies, the duo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) as well as their presidential candidates Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar respectively are getting increasingly jittery over the popularity and national outlook of the flag-bearer of the Labour Party, Dr Peter Obi.
As a result, these two political parties, their presidential candidates and their foot soldiers are stopping at nothing to hoodwink the public into believing their falsehood and have deployed propaganda, which played a major role in the ascension to power of the ruling APC in 2015 , they defeated the incumbent party, the PDP.
But over the past seven and half years, with made promises not kept, mis-governance and blatant lies by government officials even in the face of obvious facts, Nigerians have come to terms with these antics and are now better informed that is why they are volunteering and donating their time, energy, skills, profession, sincerity, commitment and patriotism to Peter Obi project in the name of Peter Obi Movement.
Intimidated by the activities and population of this movement, the APC and PDP have deployed mischief in their campaign against the Obi/Datti ticket. In carrying out their dirty deals, they are using three weapons: “propaganda, “false fact-check” and “influencers” to bring down the Labour Party candidate.
In their propaganda war, their attack lines are:
… To promote Obi as an ethnic candidate with an ethnic agenda and stopped from being established as a national phenomenon.
… To constantly challenge the credibility of Peter Obi and to portray him as habitual liar with a movement based on lies.
… That the story of Peter Obi’s achievements as Governor of Anambra State must be re-told to establish that he was a failure in government.
… The frugality for which Mr. Obi is known and which is one of his major selling points must be reinterpreted as incurable stinginess.
…To continuously repeat that Peter Obi has no structure and that the election cannot be won on social media with the aim of destroying the confidence of his supporters.
Weapon of Fact-check:
These desperate parties have decided to criticize every fact, statement and statistics put forward by Mr. Obi under the guise that they have been fact-checked to be false to discredit him and to cause disaffection amongst his teeming followers that cut across regions.
Tope Ogunkeye captured their mischief when he wrote:
“It is incredible that all of a sudden Nigeria is a country of fact checkers with the emergence of Peter Obi.
“No one wakes up to fact check the names of company directors who recieve non-executed government projects.
“No one is fact checking Zainab Ahmed and the billions she claims to dole out monthly.
“No one is fact checking the military on humongous budgets spent on fighting terrorism.
“Subsidy scam which should have people locked up in jail daily, has zero fact checking going on.
“No one is fact checking APC/PDP Governor’s why some haven’t paid salaries in their states, abandoned projects fully paid for. But all of a sudden we have the intellectual capacity to complete research to oppose a man with only twitter voters.
Let us fact check ourselves.
War using influencers:
Seeing that influencers are voluntarily aligning and associating with Peter Obi Movement, the APC and PDP are mimicking that by paying influencers between #200,000 and #500,000 to woo Nigerian youths in their favour while their attack dogs and propaganda machineries continue in their attempt to discredit Peter Obi and everything good he represents that entices his followers.
Blossom Martins, one of their recruited influencers in their Whatsapp group who latter abandoned them to support Peter Obi Movement attested to this when she took to her twitter handle @blissommartins and tweeted:
“My PDP and APC friends influencers are being being paid 200- 500k depending on there level of influence, this is a fact, because I was in their Whatsapp group before I left to support Obi…
“PO is the only politician in the history of Nigeria politics without a single paid influencer.
There is no influencer being paid by labour party, instead influencers are the ones funding the campaign and lending their voices for a positive change… This has never happened before and that is why those being paid are upset and running the smear campaign… PO IS KING”.
“And in their FACES PETER OBI WILL BE PRESIDENT.”
See the tweet below:
