{"id":14001,"date":"2025-06-03T07:40:48","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T07:40:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=14001"},"modified":"2025-06-03T07:41:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T07:41:04","slug":"apc-rebuts-claims-of-weaponizing-poverty-says-pdp-focused-on-defections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/03\/apc-rebuts-claims-of-weaponizing-poverty-says-pdp-focused-on-defections\/","title":{"rendered":"APC Rebuts Claims of &#8220;Weaponizing&#8221; Poverty, Says PDP Focused on Defections"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed allegations made by Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, and Nasir el-Rufai that President Bola Tinubu&#8217;s administration is deliberately exacerbating poverty to achieve political gains.\n<br>\n<br>The quartet, comprising former presidential candidates and high-ranking government officials, made the claims at an event in Abuja marking Amaechi&#8217;s 60th birthday. However, APC National Publicity Secretary Felix Morka argued that their criticisms were motivated by self-interest and a desire to cling to the old rent-seeking economy that enriched them at the expense of Nigerians.\n<br>\n<br>Morka stated, &#8220;The quartet&#8217;s claims are a shameless attempt to hold onto the corrupt and inefficient economic system that enabled and sustained their reckless plunder and exploitation of the economy.&#8221; He added that Amaechi, having served 24 years in various government positions, lacked the moral authority to make such claims, given his own record of &#8220;freeloading&#8221; on state resources without attempting to combat poverty.\n<br>\n<br>The APC spokesperson further noted that Amaechi&#8217;s recent admission of feeling &#8220;hungry&#8221; barely two years after leaving office underscored his self-serving motivations and those of his coalition partners.\n<br>\n<br>Meanwhile, PDP National Publicity Secretary Debo Ologunagba countered that the APC was more focused on celebrating defections than governance. He claimed that Tinubu&#8217;s administration was deliberately weakening opposition parties by encouraging defections through coercion and inducement.\n<br>\n<br>Ologunagba stated, &#8220;The President&#8217;s declaration of preference for a one-party state shows that they are aggressively attacking the processes of other political parties.&#8221; He added that the PDP&#8217;s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting communiqu\u00e9 addressed the trend, noting that most defections were not based on conviction but pressure from the ruling party.\n<br>\n<br>In a separate development, civil rights activist Shehu Sani blamed leaders of the North for the region&#8217;s woes, while urging Northerners to support Tinubu in 2027. Sani, who represented Kaduna Central in the Senate, argued that the North&#8217;s problems were largely self-inflicted.\n<br>\n<br>The controversy highlights the ongoing political tensions between the ruling APC and opposition parties, with both sides engaging in a war of words over governance, poverty, and political strategy.\n<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The All Progressives Congress (APC) has dismissed allegations made by Atiku Abubakar, Peter Obi, Rotimi Amaechi, and Nasir el-Rufai that President Bola Tinubu&#8217;s administration is deliberately exacerbating poverty to achieve political gains. The quartet, comprising former presidential candidates and high-ranking government officials, made the claims at an event in Abuja marking Amaechi&#8217;s 60th birthday. However, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-naija-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14001"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14002,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14001\/revisions\/14002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}