The Spokesperson and Director, Public Affairs of Tinubu/Shettima Presidential Campaign Council, Festus Keyamo, SAN, has said there is nothing wrong in a few slips made by the Presidential candidate of the ruling party, All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Tinubu had at the Lagos APC Presidential Rally on Saturday, erroneously referred to the Permanent Voter Cards, PVCs, as “APV” and urged Nigerians to get their APVs to vote in the 2023 general election.
This is coming as some Nigerians have also attributed his gaffes at earlier rallies and events to old age.
His words: “Greatest Nigerian youths. Are you great? God bless you. Go and take your PVC and you vote APC. Do you love me? Go and take your APV, APC and you must vote. You must go that morning,” he said.
However, reacting to the development, the Minister of State, Labour and Employment said making gaffes has nothing to do with age, noting that the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, has been making gaffes without anyone making a fuss about it.
He noted further that famous speakers such as former US President Barack Obama, and the incumbent Joe Biden, had made gaffes during campaigns and as such, Tinubu’s own is not peculiar.
“I haven’t seen any headline anywhere about Peter Obi describing Nasarawa as a country. When he (Obi) said Nasarawa is a country and not a state, did anybody make any news out of it?”
“Obi has been fact-checked so many times and has been caught lying openly about statistics, is it because of age?”
“The best speakers in the world, the most intelligent person, once you are on the campaign trail, you can make mistakes. Go and check candidates of the most civilised countries of the world, including Britain make gaffes. Barack Obama made a lot of gaffes, US President Joe Biden made a lot of gaffes”.
“When you are on the campaign trail of four to five months and you are speaking every day, every minute to every people, you are bound to make slips here and there. There is nothing serious about it. As long as you are sure of what you are saying and not saying something totally off-key, there is no problem at all.
“They are so much interested in Asiwaju that the moment he begins to talk, every single member of the opposition parties is tuned to listening to whatever he wants to say. They listen to every sentence, alphabet and every word he pronounces.
“We in the APC are happy about that. It shows the level of interest they have in our candidate.”
