APC, PDP clash again over Jonathan’s declaration The All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party on Thursday exchanged verbal missiles over claims made by President Goodluck Jonathan during his declaration. The National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, during a press briefing in Abuja, accused the Jonathan-led PDP administration of making bogus claims. According to him, the President misrepresented facts and demonstrated a lack of empathy for the plight of Nigerians in the North-East. He explained that apart from being ill-timed, the Jonathan’s declaration showed Nigerians how comfortable his administration and the PDP were promoting and sustaining a culture of impunity and corruption. Odigie-Oyegun said, “Two days ago, you heard President Goodluck Jonathan announce himself as the candidate of the PDP and asked Nigerians for another four years as President. “You heard a lot of claims, misrepresentations and voodoo statistics, none of which can stand the barest scrutiny. Disregard them! “You heard excuses for failure to fix basic infrastructure, arrest unprecedented levels of corruption and halt the march of terrorists daily inching nearer all of us. You heard promises that sound familiar because you have heard them all before since his rulership as President. “Do not give the party that has savaged Nigeria in the last 16 years an opportunity to finally finish off our dear nation. The PDP cannot deliver on any of the same promises it has failed to honour in over a decade and a half in power.” He also accused the President of failing to empathise with hundreds of thousands of Nigerians who are now Internally Displaced Persons as a result of the occupation of their land by Boko Haram. Odigie-Oyegun also said it was a grave act of insensitivity for the President and his party, to engage in a jamboree barely 24 hours after about 50 schoolchildren were murdered by terrorists. “Our President lives in his comfort zone, content to utter words, and ‘minutes of silence’ that have no meaning to the victims,” he added. In response, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, said the President’s declaration had thrown the APC into confusion. Metuh said this in a statement in Abuja on Thursday. He said the APC leaders in their “characteristic manner, instead of accepting the successes already acknowledged by Nigerians, went into their usual shadowboxing and mischievous propaganda in a failed attempt to score a cheap political point.” According to him, a lurid epithet on the APC defies the logic of an alternative while exposing it as hypocritical and opportunistic. He urged the political class to be objective and forthright in their campaigns. . Metuh berated the APC for “always seeking to gain political capital from the insecurity challenges in the nation.” He explained that the President defied the expectations of the terrorists and their sponsors by going ahead with the declaration, a day after the Potiskum bombing. The PDP spokesman also said the President and his party stood with the mourning families, as his disposition, speech and mobilising of over 100,000 Nigerians in prayers at the event showed. Metuh said, “Nigerians may recall that on the 20th of May, 2014, there was a twin bomb blasts in the city of Jos, killing 118 people and wounding at least 56 others. “However, this tragedy on the nation did not restrain the APC from holding its so-called Mega Rally in Ekiti the very next day, May 21, in promotion of the governorship campaigns of the then Governor Kayode Fayemi. “The entire top hierarchy of the APC, its national leaders, governors and the Interim National Executives were in attendance. “At the rally, the APC observed a minute silence in honour of fellow Nigerians mowed down in cold blood, before charging the atmosphere with usual insults and loathing acts of insensitivity, speaker, after speaker.”
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 06:34:36 +0000