President Bola Tinubu on Sunday addressed the mass defection from PDP to APC. He told opposition members in the country to desist from attributing blames to him for the inability to manage their party affairs.
He added that party switching by politicians was neither unusual nor unique to Nigeria, citing successful politicians, statesmen, and women who switched parties in more developed countries as examples.
Tinubu further stated that the country’s democracy was not in any way in danger and that the claims that his government was heading towards dictatorship were unfounded and false.
In a statement released by his spokesperson, Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu questioned whether it was appropriate to applaud the defection of certain opposition party members while condemning the defection of some All Progressives Congress (APC) members, including Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, the immediate former governor of Kaduna State, who defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
The statement, titled “Democracy strong and alive in Nigeria, ignore alarmists,’’ read: “We have read the alarming claims of disgruntled opposition figures, some partisan human rights crusaders and emergency defenders of democracy over recent defections of key members of opposition parties into the governing All.
“Without any equivocation, freedom of association, freedom of speech and freedom of choice are part of the cherished ideals of democracy. When politicians and citizens cannot freely join any association or political party of their choice or cannot openly express their views, democracy is imperiled.
“We want to state that democracy is not threatened or undermined simply because politicians exercise their rights to freedom of association.
“Nigerians migrating to the APC and expressing support for Tinubu are doing so out of their free will, based on the belief that the reforms being executed are in the interest of Nigerians and the unborn generation” the statement added.
According to the statement, democracy remained robust under President Tinubu, and the multiparty democratic system will continue to thrive unrestrained.
It called on all Nigerians to support the government in defending democracy by honouring the decisions made by the people and ignoring alarmists who base their arguments on fabrication.
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