Former President Goodluck Jonathan has
alleged that the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari is
characterised by lies and propaganda.
Jonathan spoke in Abuja on Thursday when
he received one of the national chairmanship aspirants of the Peoples
Democratic Party, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, and members of his campaign team
in his office.
The party will hold its national convention in Abuja on December 9 to elect its national officers.
Jonathan said the solidarity being
enjoyed by the party even though it lost election at the centre in 2015
showed that “there is something in the PDP.”
While pledging to speak up some day on
the achievements of the PDP in its 16 years in power, the former
President took a swipe at the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr.
Babatunde Fashola (SAN), who as a state governor reportedly said that a
serious government at the centre must be able to fix power within six
months.
Jonathan was the president when Fashola made the statement.
The former president observed that more
than two years of the APC Federal Government, to which Fashola belongs
as a minister, the government had not been able to fix power.
He noted that Fashola who made the statement is incidentally in charge of power today.
Jonathan said the Buhari government had not done anything since it came to power on May 29, 2015.
“The PDP administration for 16 years did
well and will continue to do well but this administration has done
nothing. They deployed propaganda and lies at a professional level.
“In the power sector, we did well to
revive it. A state governor attacked our government, saying that any
serious government should be able to fix the power challenge within six
months.
“Today, APC has been in power for how many years now? Fortunately the then governor is in the APC government as a minister.”
Extolling the qualities of Adeniran,
Jonathan reminded members of the PDP not to forget that for the party to
stand a chance to oust the APC in 2019, the party would need a
competent, reliable and courageous national chairman who would lead the
party to victory come 2019.
According to him, the PDP “needs a
national chairman that will select credible and reliable candidates for
various elective offices at the various levels of government from the
presidency down to the councillorship.
“We need a national chairman who will be
courageous enough to caution the President if we win the Presidency and
the President is going astray,” he said, adding that the expectation of
the PDP was a “national chairman who will rule the party
democratically and carry others along.”
Jonathan said that with his long
interaction with Adeniran and testimonies of other party leaders, he
possessed all it would take to lead the PDP to new heights.
He counselled party members, especially
the aspirants not to allow the outcome of the convention to cause
another crisis in the party, warning, “We must not come out of the
convention divided. There should be no acrimony.”
In his remarks, Adeniran said he was not
in the contest for fun, stressing that the need to rebuild and
reposition the PDP ahead of the 2019 general elections informed his
decision.
“Nigerians are waiting. Till now, more than 3/5th of Nigerians are still sympathetic to the PDP,” he said.
On Adeniran’s delegation were former
ministers, Abba Moro (Internal Affairs); Zainab Maina (Women Affairs);
Jerry Gana (Information); and a two-time Speaker of the Edo State House
of Assembly, Friday Itulah, among others.
When contacted for reaction to
Jonathan’s allegation, the President’s media team referred one of our
correspondents to the All Progressives Congress.
The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, was however unavailable for comments.
Calls to his mobile phone were neither picked nor returned.
A response to a text message sent to him on the subject was still being awaited as of the time of filing this report.
In his reaction, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, stated that Jonathan did not have the right facts.
The minister, who spoke through his
Senior Special Adviser on Communications, Hakeem Bello, stated that it
was unfortunate to know that Jonathan would accuse the current
government of not doing enough in the power sector.
He said, “It is unfortunate that the
former President does not have his facts right. This is because there
was nowhere that the current Minister of Power, Works and Housing and
former Governor of Lagos State said he could fix Nigeria’s power
challenges in six months.
“If he (Jonathan) needs clarification,
we can provide that, instead of stating things that are not factual with
respect to the minister and the power sector.”
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