The All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked
President Goodluck Jonathan to go to court if
he feels libelled by the description of his
presidency as a kindergarten presidency by the
Interim National Chairman of the APC, Chief
Bisi Akande.
In a statement in Accra yesterday by its
National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, the party said Chief Akande
merely told the truth by his characterisation of
the Jonathan presidency, adding: “Isn’t truth a
defence to libel?”
It also said there was nothing strange or wrong
in criticising a democratically-elected
President. “After all, he is neither an imperial
president, a monarchy nor an emperor.”
APC said nothing confirmed Chief Akande’s
assertion that Jonathan is running a
kindergarten presidency than the crude
manner it (presidency) responded to the frank
but constructive criticism by the APC National
Chairman.
“In the true character of this presidency, its
irreverent and undignified spokesman failed to
respond to the issues raised by Chief Akande.
Instead, he chose to haul abuses at a man who
is old enough to be his father. Such
irresponsible act does no credit to the
spokesman or the president he is serving, and
Nigerians will not forget such crudity in a
hurry.
“Where is the presidency’s response to Chief
Akande’s assertion that he has written two
letters to the President over the serious
challenges facing the country, without getting
a response? Where is the presidency’s response
to Chief Akande’s assertion that President
Jonathan is victimising political opponents?
These are the issues Nigerians are interested
in, not how many hours the President sleeps at
night because he is supposedly working
tirelessly.
“If indeed this President is working tirelessly,
we need to ask who he is working for because
Nigerians are yet to feel the impact of his
administration. They are also not interested
that the president once served as a deputy
governor, governor and vice-president,
because the experience he supposedly garnered
from doing so has not impacted positively on
his duty as a president. That’s not a surprise,
considering that the President owes his
meteoric rise in politics to luck and destiny.
Nothing else!” the party said.
It described the presidency as an under-
achieving one, always eager to celebrate
tokenism, using questionable statistics.
“As the presidency was composing its empty
response to the serious issues raised by our
highly-respected Chairman, the African
Development Bank was saying in its annual
report (African Economic Outlook), quoted by
the local media on Sunday, that the proportion
of people (Nigerians) living below the national
poverty line has worsened from 65.5 per cent
in 1996 to 69.0 per cent in 2010, most of
those years under the PDP and the last four
under President Jonathan.
“What therefore is there to celebrate in a
presidency under which power generation has
fallen to 2,500MW? What is there to celebrate
in a presidency that has only given Nigerians
widespread insecurity, unemployment,
dilapidated infrastructure, oil theft and
unbridled corruption. Of what use is the
touted six per cent increase in the GDP when
over 40 per cent of our youths are
unemployed?” APC queried.
The party described as a figment of the
presidency’s imagination the claim of a feud
between its leaders, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed
Tinubu and Maj.-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari,
saying the PDP and the presidency have been
peddling lies over a phantom feud because
they could not fathom how the leadership of
the APC could put national interest above
personal considerations.
“Mr. President, don’t let your lick-spittle aides
deceive you. There is no feud between the two
leaders. Waiting for such a feud is like ‘Waiting
for Godot’”, it said.
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