APC to Jonathan: beg Nigerians
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked President Goodluck
Jonathan to apologise to Nigerians for wasting the mandate they gave him
rather than asking them for another.
The party said in a statement
signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, and
made available toThe Nationin Abuja that rather than deliver the
dividends of democracy to the citizenry, the Jonathan administration was busy parading phantom achievements in its almost 60 months in the saddle.
Describing the Jonathan administration as the worst government ever in
Nigeria, the party said Nigerians cannot wait to elect one that will
have positive impact on them.
The party said that the President
failed to get the usual bounce from such declarations because
Nigerianswere not the least impressed by the so-called achievements,
which have not positively impacted on the lives of the citizens.
It
said: “Mr. President, Nigerians have asked themselves a simple question:
Are we better off today than we were before President Jonathan assumed
office, and they have unanimously answered in the negative. This is why
your declaration failed to resonate, despite the hired crowds you
ferried to Abuja.”
The party also said it has weighed the
President’s claims in his declaration speech against the reality on the
ground and decided to present to Nigerians the true scorecard of
President Jonathan in the critical spheres of life, including security,
education, job creation, corruption, power sector, and poverty
eradication.
It explained that insecurity and job creation, which
are intertwined, represent the biggest failure of the Jonathan
Administration, irrespective of its claims to the contrary.
“Today,
after the Jonathan Administration has spent $32 billion on security and
defence, Nigeria is not any safer, with thousands of deaths, 221,000
square kilometres of territory captured by Boko Haram, 650,000 Nigerians
internally displaced and also a daily harvest of deaths from
ethno-religious crises, clashes between pastoralists and farmers, armed
robberies and kidnapping.
“To make matters worse, our once proud and
globally-acknowledged military has been brought to its knees by lack of
necessary fighting equipment, even with $32 billion spent. One wonders
where the huge funds went to”, the party said.
APC said while the
government claimed to have created 1.9 million jobs in five years, the
truth is that this is a mere tokenism. “Even if the jobs they said they
have created are not phantom, which we know they are, the situation on
the ground is grim: 1.8 million Nigerians enter the job market every
year, 5.3 million youths are unemployed and overall 20 million Nigerians
are in the job market, and these are very conservative figures.
Therefore, creating 1.9 million jobs over several years cannot amount to
any achievement,’’ the party said.
The party also said that while
the President promised to eradicate corruption in all sectors of the
economy, the facts on ground do not back the promise. “Mr. President,
under your watch, Nigeria’s rating by the global anti-corruption
watchdog Transparency International has fallen. In 2009, Nigeria was
rated 133 out of 180 countries while in 2013, the country was rated 144
out of 177 countries.
“Mr. President, under your watch, the list of
corruption cases begging to be handled is long: The missing $20b oil
money, the Malabu oil scandal, the fuel subsidy scandal, the police
pension heist, kerosene subsidy, and the sudden drop in the total amount
realised from the Victims Support Fund from N80b to N60b. Plus the
Ministers like Abba Moro, who presided over the swindling and death of
job seekers, and Diezani Alison Madueke, who has presided over the most
opaque oil
industry in history, have rather received presidential cuddling instead of sanctions.
“Also, SURE-P, which was conceived to mitigate the hardship imposed on
Nigerians by the needless increase in fuel prices, has now become a
cesspit of corruption, a conduit for siphoning public funds and sure pit
for money that could have ameliorated the suffering of ordinary
Nigerians.”
The APC also said that the statement by President
Jonathan that his Administration’s ‘’bold move’’ in the sector has put
the country ‘’on the road to guaranteed regular power supply in the
months ahead’’ is nothing but sheer deceit.
“Under the Jonathan
Administration, Nigerians should not be in a hurry to throw away their
generators. The facts on the ground show this to be true: While the FG
has spent 533 billion naira (about $3 billion) on power, at best
Nigerians enjoy less than six hours of electricity per day, where they
enjoy it at all, while spending over 800 billion naira annually to fuel
their generators.
“Also, the 4,000MW of electricity being generated
by Nigeria cannot guarantee stable power for 170 million people or
propel the country towards industrialisation. By comparison, South
Africa, with less than a third of Nigeria’s population, generates over
44,000MW of electricity. There is therefore no way that Nigeria can
enjoy a stable power supply with a meagre 4,000MW in power generation,’’
it said.
The APC maintained that the President’s claims that the
country has met Millennium Development Goal 1, which is the eradication
of extreme poverty and hunger, flies in the face of the reality on the
ground, adding: ‘’How can we claim to have eradicated extreme poverty
and hunger when over 100 million Nigerians live on less than $2 per day,
according to verifiable statistics?’’
According to the party, with
51% of Nigerians, representing 90 million people, being illiterate, the
establishment of 150Almajirischools has not even scratched the surface
of the problem.
It also accused the President of insensitivity to
the plight of the people who voted him into office, as he would rather
fly to Burkina Faso than visit Chibok, Buni Yadi and Potiskum, which are
some of the places where dozens of youth have been killed and maimed by
the Boko Haram terrorists in recent times.
“The President should
not just be the Commander-in-Chief but also the Consoler-in-Chief. A
President who delights in comparing himself the the likes of Obama must
learn to act like the US President, who did not hesitate to visit his
nation’s troops in Iraq and Afghanistan despite the risks involved,’’
APC said.
It stressed that with his Administration’s litany of
failures, President Jonathan should rather apologise to Nigerians for
wasting the mandate they freely gave to him in 2011, instead of daring
to ask them for another mandate.
11/17/2014
APC to Jonathan: beg Nigerians
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