President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday suffered another round of attacks from the All Progressives Congress (APC) as leading members of the opposition party took a swipe at his administration, asking him to prepare his handover note as the end of administration is imminent.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, described the head of the federal government as a “complete failure and a disappointment to Nigerians.”
Tambuwal, who recently defected from the ruling PDP to the APC, while speaking in Benin City, the Edo State capital, at the sixth anniversary of the Governor Adams Oshiomhole administration, said he accepted the invitation to join the opposition party because the PDP had failed Nigerians.
He said what Nigerians were currently experiencing was not a government but a cabal that hijacked the resources of the people for their selfish interest.
The speaker admonished Nigerians not to be deceived again by the antics of the PDP in the 2015 general election, as it had been proven that the ruling party will not provide good governance.
He described the APC as a movement for change with the objective of ensuring better living condition for the people, advising those campaigning for the re-election of Jonathan to go and settle debts they owed the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), before soliciting for votes for him to avoid prosecution.
Tambuwal urged Jonathan to stop covering his lack of performance with the excuse that he was being intimidated because he comes from the minority, because what Nigerians need is good governance and not where the person comes from.
His words: “I accepted to join the movement for change in Nigeria being championed by the APC because the government at the centre has failed, and the objective of the change movement is to provide Nigerians with uninterrupted power supply and improved infrastructure.
“What we have at the moment is not a government but a cabal that has hijacked the resources of the people for its selfish interest. Nigerians should not be deceived again. It has been proven that the PDP will not provide good governance. What Nigerians need is good governance no matter where the person who would provide it comes from.
Also speaking, former governor of Lagos State and national leader of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, charged Nigerians to use their votes to liberate the country from the PDP’s imposed poverty in 2015.
He reiterated the party’s call for President Jonathan to resign, or the APC would sweep him out of office in the forthcoming polls, as insurgents are gradually taking over Nigeria under his leadership.
Tinubu wondered why the president would still go ahead with his declaration for the presidential election on Tuesday when he should have been mourning the death of over 47 students who were bombed in Potiskum, Yobe State, a day before his declaration.
He contended that the insensitivity displayed by Jonathan showed how he governs the country.
“Jonathan danced on the blood of the Yobe school children when he went ahead with his declaration for the 2015 presidential election yesterday (Tuesday) in Abuja.
Insurgents are taking over parts of Nigeria; who is responsible? How can soldiers who stake their lives fighting the insurgents be rounded up and sentenced to death? Jonathan must resign. If he fails to resign, we will sweep him away,” Tinubu said.
Urging Nigerians to be ready to vote out the PDP in the 2015 elections, the APC leader said: “We have done it before and we are ready to do it again. We will show them that the power of the people is greater than the power of tyranny.”
He warned the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against collaborating with the PDP, saying that the APC will resist such plot, adding that the opposition will support the electoral body to create additional polling units, but “not the ones with zero registered voters that would be used to rig elections.”
On his part, Oshiomhole, who also warned against the rigging in the next elections, said any attempt by the PDP-led federal government to use the military to rig the polls would be resisted.
He said: “Nobody born by a woman will govern Nigeria in 2015 with a stolen mandate. So, let them stop using the language ‘fall’ because we are ready to defend our land. And any attempt to use the armed forces to rig the elections, it will be fire for fire.
We will stand and defend our democracy because only a coward dies a million times before his death.”
Reacting to the recent declaration by President Jonathan that “Edo State will fall to the PDP” 2015, Oshiomhole advised the president to look elsewhere for support in his re-election bid, as Edo people will this time not vote on the basis of tribalism. He also said that the state “is not an enemy territory,” but one that has come to stay.
“In 2015, Edo people will not vote on the basis of tribalism but on the basis of who will provide power. For as long as the PDP is in power, Nigerians will be out of power; for as long as the PDP has power, Nigerians will never have power. So, Edo State will never fall to the PDP and we cannot be intimidated.
Former Head of State, General Muhmmadu Buhari and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who also addressed the crowd, urged Nigerians to sustain the momentum that brought the APC to power in Edo State and extend same to the rest of the country including the centre.
In his speech, the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said the party promises a new Nigeria, boasting that the party will sweep the 2015 elections in the South-south geo-political zone seen as the stronghold of President Jonathan as well as form the government at the centre.
At a different forum yesterday, the Lagos State governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, blamed President Goodluck Jonathan for the growing activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the North-east.
Consequently, the governor said a federal government under the president lacked the capacity to defend the country’s territorial integrity, citing the growing loss of the country’s territory.
He said this at the ninth raffle of Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (LagosHOMs) draw at LTV 8 compound in Agidingbi, Ikeja, calling his countrymen to cease the 2015 elections to vote out leaders that underperformed.
The governor said the federal government’s failure “to ensure the security of lives and properties was responsible for the insurgent’s takeover of some parts of the country.”
Fashola explained that the people of Nigeria handed the country over to Jonathan’s administration intact, lamenting the extent to which the country “has degenerated, so much so that some parts of the country have fallen into the hands of the insurgents.”
The governor said the powers that be “enjoy making promises, they cannot keep. We have heard promises about security, not so? Promises made four years ago. But we handed them the Federal Republic of Nigeria, with all its components parts intact.
“We are back four years after with some parts of Nigeria already taken away from them and they are saying the next four years will be better,” Fashola explained.
He urged his countrymen “to be wary of politicians who come to them during this electoral period to make superficial promises, noting that the electorate should assess the track records of political office-holders and their political parties before deciding for them.