The All Progressives Congress (APC) Tuesday faulted the various achievements being brandished by top officials of President Goodluck Jonathan in 2013, assuring Nigerians that the party would give them a better country.
Lai Mohammed, the party’s Interim National Publicity Secretary in a statement described the present administration at the federal level as clueless and self-serving, calling for the support of the people so that the APC can reshape the country’s political landscape.
“They say President Jonathan’s achievement in 2013 is unprecedented, yet Nigerians celebrated the Christmas and New Year holidays in unprecedented pitch darkness and an unprecedented number of our youths are unemployed; They say they are winning the war against corruption, yet key government officials, including the so-called Coordinating Minister of the Economy, do not even know how much Nigeria earns from crude oil and gas sales, and what happened to 12 billion dollars earned from domestic crude lifting; They are so eager to cling to any straw of ‘achievement’ that they are celebrating the revival of the locomotive engine in the 21st century!
“Such is their insensitivity and total lack of compassion for human beings that the Jonathan administration will rather spend the nation’s scarce resources on importing animals for the villa zoo and on purchasing presidential jets that they do not need.
“While wishing all Nigerians a great 2014, we hereby solicit their unalloyed support for our efforts to reshape the country’s political landscape, shake off the heavy yoke imposed on them by their selfish, self-serving and clueless leaders and make the country a source of pride not only to its citizens but to all black people in the world,” the statement reads in part.
Mr. Mohammed stressed the need for the leaders to derive their powers from the people through free, fair and credible elections, adding that political authority must be anchored on the rule of law.
The statement reads further, “As we wrote in the preamble to our manifesto, ‘democracy, to be stable and meaningful, must be anchored on the principle that government derives its powers from the consent of the governed….This means that governments are instituted on the basis of free, fair and credible elections, and are maintained through responsiveness to public opinion.
“In addition, the exercise of political authority is rooted in the rule of law. APC believes in the doctrine of social contract between the leaders and the led; which means that the public office holder is a trustee of the people and that power must be used in the interest of the people rather than in the interest of the public office holder’,” the party said.
“We ask all those who are yearning for genuine change to seize the moment and embrace the engine of change, which the APC represents! Our compatriots who have lost faith in our dear country because of inefficient and corrupt leadership can count on us, because we represent committed, transparent and focused leadership,” APC said.
“We know skeptics will sneer at these and deride them as mere sloganeering. After all, Nigerians have been taken for a ride for the past 14 years by those who have mistaken transmogrification for transformation, and those who have relentless pursued power for the sake of power, rather than to use it to harness the country’s abundant human resources.
“But most things look impossible until they have been achieved, and the impressive record of performance in the states under our control, from Kano to Imo states and from Lagos to Edo, testifies to our ability, determination and willingness to make things happen for the benefit of our people.
“Because this government has become numb to reason, because this government has deteriorated from cluelessness to hopelessness and because this government has totally lost any sense of direction, we say it is time for Nigerians to gird their loins and join hands with all those who are seeking genuine change. To adapt Mahatma Gandhi’s timeless quote, Nigerians must be the change they wish to see in their country, and the year 2014 must be our Year of Change!” APC said.
