All Progressives Congress (APC)
presidential hopeful, General
Muhammadu Buhari, said that
President Goodluck Jonathan knows
he has not done enough for Nigerians
to vote for him again since 2011, a
statement by APC spokesman Rotimi
Fashakin says.
The statement released today, October 17, asserted
that Mr. Jonathan knows that he has run an
exclusive government laden with scandals of grand
larcenies in many institutions.
“For the first time, impunity reached
all- time high with the famous
Fayose-led desecration of the Courts
of Justice in Ekiti state under the
watchful eyes of security forces,”
Fashakin’s statement read.
According to the statement, General Buhari reiterated
that the Jonathan government is the most corrupt in
Nigeria’s chequered history and underscored the
general’s resolve to forge ahead with a presidential
run despite carefully-woven insidious commentaries
against him.
“He is hopeful that, with the support
of the long-suffering Nigerian people,
the APC government under his
guardianship shall sweep away the
fecklessness of the PDP in the
February, 2015 elections,” Fashakin added
in the statement.
Read full text of the press statement
below:
The unfortunate riposte from Jonathan’s regime
The Jonathan government is the most corrupt in
Nigeria’s chequered history has never been in doubt,
what has become, clearly intolerable, is the
predilection of this administration for shameful
revisionism, denial of the truth and unpatriotic
divisiveness.
Whilst it is not our desire to bandy words with this
administration that is steeped on perilous leadership
of the Nation, we feel a deep sense of responsibility
to present the facts again for the perusal of
discerning Nigerian People.
On Wednesday, 15th October, 2014, while declaring
his intention (before a mammoth crowd of faithful
Nigerian supporters), General Muhammadu Buhari
(GMB) stated, inter-alia: “The economy continues to
deteriorate while the Government continues to
announce fantastic growth figures but
manufacturing is down, agriculture is down,
commerce is down
Simply because you sell oil and steal part of the
money does not entitle you to cook figures and
announce phantom economic growth when all the
major indices namely, Employment, Manufacturing,
Farming, Trading are demonstrably on the decline. “
Expectedly, the Goodluck Jonathan presidency, rather
than giving truthful response to the message, lunged
at the messenger in the most indecent tradition that
has become second nature to the operatives of the
communication of the administration.
In order to support its nebulous claim of the
improvement of the economy, the Jonathan
Presidency stated: “As is well known, available
figures, statistics and ratings show that the Nigerian
economy has consistently maintained an
unprecedented growth rate of 6-7% under the
Jonathan administration. They also show that the
Nigerian economy is now the leading economy in
Africa and the 26th largest in the world with a gross
domestic product of over $500 billion per annum.”
Contrary to these bogus claims by this
administration, the National Bureau of Statistics
(NBS), in its June 12, 2013 online release, stated that
112 million Nigerians (representing 67% of the entire
population) live below poverty line! Earlier, in its
‘May 2013 Nigeria Economic Report’, the World Bank
said the number of Nigerians living in poverty was
increasing too rapidly.
The relevant question that readily comes up is, of
what use is gloating about with seemingly fantastic
economic growth statistics when two-third of the
Nation’s populating is reeling in grinding poverty? It
is an incontrovertible fact that the reason for the
manifested youth restiveness in the national space is
exacerbated by blatant inability of the Jonathan
regime to improve on Job creation. The mindset of
the Jonathan Presidency is encapsulated in the
famous statement made by President Goodluck
Jonathan himself in Davos, Switzerland (earlier in the
year) wherein he stated that his administration’s
backward integration has made a Nigerian the
richest man in Africa! It did not make a difference
to this President that the grim fact is that there is
inequitable distribution of the Nation’s wealth. It is
this fact that came into the fore when five Power
generating assets and ten power distributing assets
were sold to known cronies in another scandalous
privatization deal. Meanwhile, majority of Nigerians
have not had improved supply of electricity to their
homes and business offices. All these are
manifestations of an administration that is unwilling
to show sensitivity to the plight of the teeming
population of the Nigerian people.
Indeed, the denial of fact, as a character trait of
Jonathan government, should not surprise anyone, as
the Jonathan administration has abundant capacity
for mendacity, chicanery and revisionism. In April
2014, when the news broke that over two hundred
young Nigerian female children had been abducted
by unconscionable beings, the first reaction of the
Jonathan regime was to make spirited attempts to
conceal the fact of this abduction. It took a
seventeen year old Pakistani children’s rights activist,
Malala Yousafzai, after more than three months,
before President Goodluck Jonathan agreed to meet
the Parents of the abducted girls. In a related
matter, on February 25, 2014, gunmen violated the
serenity of the Federal Government College, Buni
Yadi, Yobe state. After the dust settled, twenty nine
male students were killed and their female
counterparts abducted. These dead young Nigerians
were not even considered worthy of respect with a
minute silence at the centenary celebration that
opened about twenty four hours later. Till date,
President GoodluckJonathan has not thought it
worthy to visit the school! Undoubtedly, this
administration has a huge capacity for stymieing the
truth, in the vain attempts at casting delusions on
the minds of the people.
On January 21, 2013, as part of the administration’s
agricultural reforms, 3.5 million Jobs and 20 million
metric tonnes of food to domestic supply was
promised to take effect by 2015. May we remind this
government that 2015 is just two months away and
the reality that Nigerians grapple with in their daily
pursuit is a far cry from the utterly garrulous
deception!
GMB stated “Quality education for development,
modernity and social mobility” as part of the
priorities his soon-to-happen administration shall
pursue with relentless fervour. But the Jonathan
Presidency derisively castigated this by stating: “All
that General Buhari promises to do are already being
done by the Jonathan Administration to the acclaim
of ordinary Nigerians and there is no evidence before
Nigerians that the APC leader and his acolytes can do
them better. “
Details of the June 2014 West Africa Senior School
Certificate Examination (WASSCE) showed only
529,425 candidates (representing 31.28%) out of
1.7million candidates who wrote the examination
obtained credits in five subjects and above, including
English Language and Mathematics. Whilst the
performance of Nigerian students’ performance has
been very dismal in the last three years (under Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan’s administration), Ghanaian
students dominated the three positions at the
International awards for the best candidates in the
five member countries of WAEC. But this should not
surprise anyone because whilst the Jonathan
administration has consistently spent less than 13%
of the yearly budget on education (a far cry from
the UNICEF’s recommendation of 26%), Ghana spent
31% of its 2013 budget on Education!
Jonathan’s Presidency had stated with obvious
delusory intent: “His most uncharitable and
inexcusable accusation against the present
administration was that election rigging continues to
thrive in Nigeria.” In the two governorship elections
conducted this year (2014), the Military and other
security forces were deployed in a manner to
compromise the election. On the eve of the June 22,
2014 Ekiti governorship election, over two hundred
leaders of the opposition All Progressive Congress
were removed from circulation in Gestapo-style
manner by the over 36,000 security forces deployed
to the state for a ‘do or die’ electoral battle. Buoyed
by the success of its infernal impunity, over 70,000
security forces were also deployed to Osun state for
the governorship election on August 9, 2014, but the
steadfastness of the people saved the day. In its
February 2014 report, the National Human Rights’
Commission branded INEC, Police and the Judiciary
as election criminals! The questions that need to be
asked are: First, what section of the electoral laws
makes it mandatory for elections to be held under
curfew? Second, why is the PDP administration of
President Goodluck Jonathan always insistent in using
the Military for election duties when sections 214, 215
and 216 of the Nigerian Constitution clearly prescribe
that the maintenance of internal security is
fundamentally vested in the Nigeria Police Force?
Without a doubt, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan knows he
has not done enough to convince the same Nigerians,
who were gored (in 2011) into believing that his
presidency would impart positively on the Nation, to
vote for him again. He knows that he has run an
exclusive government with scandals of grand
larcenies in many institutions of government. For the
first time, impunity reached all- time high with the
famous Fayose-led desecration of the Courts of
Justice in Ekiti state under the watchful eyes of
security forces. He knows that the portent of GMB’s
entry into the Presidential contest shall automatically
stymie his desire for a second term.
Finally, GMB is unfazed by the carefully-woven
insidious commentaries against him. He remains
focused on the greater task of assuaging the pains
inflicted on the Nigerian people by the pestilence of
PDP’s fifteen-year rule of the Nigerian state. He is
hopeful that, with the support of the long-suffering
Nigerian people, the APC government under his
guardianship shall sweep away the fecklessness of
the PDP in the February, 2015 elections.
God bless the Federal republic of Nigeria.
Rotimi Fashakin (Engr.)
For: General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR
