By Henry Umoru

NATIONAL leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday took a swipe at the National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Chief Lai Mohammed, alleging that with his quarrelsome nature, he was not fit to hold any public office.

But in a swift reaction, Alhaji Mohammed charged that    the resort to crude, personal attacks by PDP spokesman, Olisa Metuh , in his latest statement is a clear vindication of APC’s stand that the PDP should urgently rebrand or go into extinction.

PDP on Mohammed

In a statement yesterday by PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh urged the confirmed Ministerial nominee to address critical issues that have been raised, rather than resort to personal attacks of persons.

Metuh said, “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) describes the spokesman of the All

Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed, as a quarrelsome and

misguided individual completely unfit to hold responsible national office in a democratic government.

“The party advised the APC spokesman to shed his offensive narcissist

tendencies even in his desperation not to end up being a minister

without a portfolio.

“The PDP counseled Lai Mohammed that having been a beneficiary of the

benevolence and forgiving spirit of the Senate President, one would

expect him now to be mature, decent, civil and more organized in his

responses to public comments.”

PDP needs rebranding – APC insists

In a statement issued in Lagos  on Saturday  by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said with a combustible and out-of-control spokesman like Metuh, there is no way the PDP will survive in opposition.

‘’Metuh has shown, time and again, that he lacks the temperament, presence of mind, sobriety, analytical mind, decency in the use of language and panache needed for anyone to be the face of any organisation, not to talk of a political party.

‘’It was the realization of this obvious fact that made us to offer to provide the excitable Metuh a crash course on how to function as an opposition spokesman. Unfortunately, it is too late now as he seems to have become totally untrainable.

‘’Instead of reacting to our sincere advice to his party to urgently rebrand or go down, Metuh chose to unleash his vitriolic tongue on the APC spokesman, just as he has done to the judiciary and many agencies of government in recent times.

‘’In what is surely a looming tragedy for the PDP, a spokesman who helped write the party into opposition is now poised to further write it into extinction,’’ it said.

APC insisted that the PDP should stop wailing and insulting the judiciary for the electoral tragedy which it brought upon itself by engaging in mindless rigging and violence in the last general elections.

‘’The doomed opposition should also immediately stop its failed strategy of trying to distract the Buhari Administration, which is busy cleaning up the mess left behind by the 16 years of locust of the sinking ‘PDP,’’ the party said.