Be honourable, Presidency tells oppositions The Presidency on Monday urged opposition political parties to be honourable in their politics by exhibiting character and patriotism in their response to current challenges of insecurity in the country. The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, stated this while addressing members of the civil society and professional groups on the third day of a programme tagged ‘Public Affairs Forum’ in Abuja. Okupe said the only reason the opposition continued to harp on insecurity in the North-East as the sole basis for assessing the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan was because they did not want the world to see Nigeria’s achievements in Agriculture, Transportation, Health and other sectors. “Almost every country in the world now has one security challenge or the other to contend with , yet nationalists in those countries do not close their eyes or shut their ears to the remarkable things happening in other sectors because they do not like the face of the President,” he said. While reviewing the presentations of Ministers of Water Resources, Power, Aviation and Transportation, who had earlier featured on the forum, Okupe said facts and figures so far presented had shown that Nigeria was not where it used to be in 2011 when Jonathan was sworn in as President. He said, “The construction of 37 new dams as well as 149 ongoing ones, 10 national integrated power projects and hundreds of new power sub-stations, revitalisation of the aviation sector as well as the massive work in rail and water transportation cannot be an evidence of a nation on a downward trend. “Those who will not see that this is a new era in Nigeria are not being honourable in their politics.” The SSA said the international financial institutions which had been bringing massive investment into Nigeria in the last three years identified the opportunities created by the Jonathan’s Transformation Agenda and should be further encouraged by local politicians.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Nov 2014 01:03:12 +0000