Don’t Make Yari Subject Of Your Campaigns, Focus on Issues – Group Tells Opposition
An advocacy group for good governance and accountability, Transparency Watch, has advised opposition political parties and other elements who have an axe to grind with the Bola Tinubu administration to channel their criticisms to the right quarters instead of shooting from pillar to post.
The group said it is piqued by the ongoing wild goose chase which seems to make Senator Abdul’aziz Yari, the Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, a scapegoat.
The good governance group said that it has noted with concern a situation where the critics sidetrack the issues and choose to tackle Senator Yari recklessly.
The group therefore invites those who have been misdirecting their energies to focus on the real issues of the campaigns and desist from making Yari the subject of their campaigns.
In a statement by its Director of Public Affairs, Cliff Richards, the group frowns on the growing tendency at lowering the quality of the campaigns through name-calling and unnecessary denigration. It expresses regret that such an approach was capable of heating up the polity and diverting attention from the real issues of the day.
Part of the statement reads:
“We at Transparency Watch have noted with concern attempts by opposition political parties as well as some groups and individuals at making Senator Abdul’aziz Yari, the Director General of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, the subject of their campaigns.
“This is unhealthy as Senator Yari is not the issue. In fact, some opposition campaigners have been shooting from pillar to post instead of channeling their energies to the right quarters. Campaigns are about issues. They are not about individuals. Senator Yari should therefore not be made a scapegoat.
“As the Director General of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, Yari has a job to do. He has started on a good note by expressing optimism that his political party would win the forthcoming elections and even rule Nigeria beyond 2031. That is the right spirit.
Those who do not like what he said can join issues with him by relying on issues rather than engage in name-calling and undue denigration. When you side track the issues and focus on an individual, you lower the quality of the campaigns.
“In another diversionary tactic, an opposition political party is asking Yari to explain what the Tinubu administration did with the N15.8 trillion it said it saved from subsidy removal and the new foreign exchange regime.
“We consider this laughable as Senator Yari is neither the Minister of Finance nor a member of President Tinubu’s economic team. Such challenges are misdirected. They should be nipped in the bud forthwith before they reduce the campaigns to a child’s play.
“ We recognize that the coming elections will be hotly contested. This is the way it should be in a democracy. Senator Yari’s party, the APC, has assembled its team.
“The party is lucky to have an erudite political tactician and administrator like Yari leading its campaigns. The other political parties should do likewise by also assembling teams that can match Yari’s political acumen. Trying to attack Yari instead of focusing on the real issues of the campaigns is a demonstration of weakness by those doing so. Yari is not the issue. He should be allowed to be,” the statement added.
