By Sunday Ani
As the February 25 presidential election approaches, the Neo Africana Centre NAC) has taken a swipe at politicians who engage in campaigns of deceit, falsehood and character assassination, and urged them to face issues instead.
The Centre condemned the incipient culture of character assassination and blackmail that has crept into the presidential campaigns as the February 25 presidential election approaches, warning that such trend and tendency portend a grave danger to a sane and civilized democratic culture that Nigerians are aspiring to enthrone.
The Centre said it is even much more regrettable that the putrid campaigns were particularly directed at the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi.
A statement by its Director of Public Affairs, Jenkins Udu, lamented that the campaigns that were supposed to be issue-based are veering off into mudslinging and cheap propaganda. It noted that the concentration and frequency of the pieces of blackmail woven around Obi create a clear impression that he is a thorn in the flesh of some persons involved in the campaigns.
Udu stressed that regardless of the calculated but needless antagonism directed at Obi, NAC was delighted that he is taking it in his stride and has, instead, continued to preach and propagate the ethos of politics without bitterness.
To stem the dangerous tide, he said the Centre had called on those concerned to retrace their steps and embrace Obi’s politics of accommodation and tolerance.
Part of the statement read: “We note with concern and trepidation that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mr. Peter Obi, has in the last few days, been buffeted with stories that border on blackmail. A few days ago, he was alleged to have given a whopping N2 billion to members of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) to procure endorsement. The Christian body has since debunked the falsehood, and nobody has come out to join issues with CAN as a way of lending credence to the claim.
“Before then, Obi was rumoured to be considering withdrawing from the race in order to pave the way for an Atiku Abubakar presidency. We found this improbable but decided to hold our breath until the records were set straight, which was that Obi never imagined or contemplated such a line of action. Again, the tale turned out to be a figment of someone’s troubled imagination.
“And now, the rumour mill has pushed out another falsehood. This time, we were told that the entire structure of the LP in the six states of the South West geopolitical zone has collapsed under the All Progressives Congress (APC). Like others before it, this story has since been discovered to be untrue.
“One common thread runs through the entire gamut of these tales. That is that all the stories seem improbable. You do not need any logical scrutiny to see through the lies.
“We deplore this reckless frenzy of blackmail and propaganda directed at Mr. Obi. Going by the concentration and intensity of the fake stories, we are beginning to wonder whether Obi is the only candidate in the race. This preoccupation smacks of desperation. We call on those fouling the political atmosphere with these baseless tales to retrace their steps as they are not doing our democracy any good. Rather than this distraction, we urge all those involved to embrace Obi’s gospel of tolerance and politics without bitterness. Ultimately, what makes sense is to face issues that are germane to the campaigns, rather than engage in campaigns of calumny and recrimination.”
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