The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Tuesday alleged that the trend and character of the spate of insurgency and sectarian violence in the country, were being sponsored by unpatriotic elements whose aim is to discredit the person, office and administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.
The party said the tactics is to distract and detract the President, constrain the successful delivery of his transformation programme so as to portray him as non-performing and finally ridicule his score card when time reckons.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh, Tuesday, said it was beyond conjecture that the Nigerian version of terrorism is the product of a narrow political persuasion that defies logic and reason.
“We accept the reality of terrorism as a global phenomenon, however, the peculiar trend of the Nigerian version which subsists on a welter of nebulous demands and masked identities, hacking down innocent Nigerians -women, children and the elderly in an awful scorch earth fashion, and in an obstinate ridicule of dialogue, defies all reason and logic and only summarizes a well considered agenda of national destabilization for a purely selfish political cause. We pointedly finger the opposition.”
“We recall statements by some politicians, vowing to make the country ungovernable for President Jonathan on the eve of the 2011 general elections, and therefore adjure Nigerians to rise against this brute ideology of violence from which a tiny clique of the political class intends to benefit ultimately. It is the climax of wickedness only heard of the Lucifer in the distant bosom of hell fire.”
The statement further declared that it was clear that President Jonathan was being persecuted for no other reason than being a Nigerian from the minority, arguing that no leader in the history of the country had faced the height of persecution that the President has been subjected to since he assumed office.
“Ironically, this is in spite of his humility and his fidelity to the orthodoxy of all democratic norms and values. This is in spite of his proven commitment to the unity and progress of every party of Nigeria irrespective of tribe and religion. Ironically, this is in spite of his proven competence and record delivery of his electoral promises.”
The PDP therefore commended the president for not only effectively containing the insurgency but beating down distractions and detractions to post unprecedented landmark achievements in all sectors of the economy in the last two and half years he has been at the helm of affairs.
The party listed some landmark achievements to include the revolutionary excels in the works sector with the dualization and rehabilitation of major trunk roads across the country in addition to the repair of Third Mainland bridge and the commencement of the works on the Second Niger Bridge. The resuscitation of the inland waterways and the railway system which have been abandoned for years and the establishment of Almajiri education system and nine new federal universities across the country.
Others according to the party include the completion and commissioning of key power stations across the country, the new automobile policy, the revolution in the housing sector with establishment of the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), the first of its kind in the country, which is tailored to deliver 75,000 houses every year for Nigerians in addition to a million direct and indirect jobs as well as the Agricultural Transformation Agenda through which six million farmers have received inputs in a programme that targets an increase in domestic food production by an additional 20 million tonnes and creating 3.5 million jobs before the end of 2015.
“This is in addition to the investments in job creation through the YouWin and SURE-P projects as well as the widening of the ambit of the PDP ideology of transferring wealth from public institutions to the private sector wherein hardworking private individuals are now thriving in manufacturing, trade, commerce and other critical sectors of the economy”, the party said.
It therefore called on all well meaning Nigerians to resist those behind the sectarian violence and insurgency in the country and shore up support for the President in his efforts to deliver the dividends of democracy to the people.
