The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2019 election, Atiku Abubakar, has slammed personal attacks by President Muhammadu Buhari’s supporters and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Spokesperson of the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCO), Segun Showunmi, accused the supporters of conveying hate speeches and dividing the nation by their utterances.
He said: “We need to restate as directed by His Excellency, Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the PDP that the 2019 election should be issue based, devoid of slandering and name calling.
"We hold the view that unguarded narrative hurts the country and further divides us as a people.
"Some of the consequences of previous mismanaged campaign efforts is perhaps the reason why there is little or no internal cohesion with its attendant security challenges.
"Elections comes every four years in our country and if great effort is not taken, we could hurt the country and its people needlessly and invariably our democracy.
"We have to sign up to these ideals, we can campaign without recourse to hate speech, libel, lies, undue criminalization of people and each other.
"On our part, we have signed up to run an issue-based campaign and if it is not too hard for the Muhammad Buhari administration and the APC to understand, we call on you to do the same.
"There is greater value in doing so. Nigeria is the most populous black nation on earth and we owe it to ourselves and the black race to be above board.”
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Politics