The All Progressives Congress (APC) has told PDP Chairman Bamanga
Tukur that only Nigerians can decide whether
or not President Goodluck Jonathan will rule beyond 2015, saying his
statement that the President will rule till 2019 is
nothing but an empty boast aimed at ingratiating himself to the President.
In a statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday by its Interim
National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also
asked the PDP Chairman to back up his statement, that it is time for
Nigerian youths to take over the reins of power, by first stepping
down from his post to pave the way for the younger generation.
It reminded Tukur that one of his predecessors once boasted, in
another euphoric moment, that the PDP will rule for 60 years,
only for him to leave office in disgrace shortly thereafter.
”There is nothing on ground to justify Tukur’s empty boast beyond the
PDP’s rigging machine, which is again being oiled in
readiness for 2015, going by the barefaced vote stealing and unbridled
brigandage that the party exhibited in the recent bye
election in Delta Central Senatorial District
”The PDP, which has presided over the affairs of Nigeria for the past
14 years, has only succeeded in pushing more people into poverty, with
112 million people now living below the poverty line and millions of
children out of school. No sector has been spared the effects of the
cluelessness and visionlessness of the PDP and its leaders. What then
is the empirical basis for the PDP to continue to rule.
”It is interesting that the Chairman said the future belongs to the
youths and that the era of Gerontocracy is gone. The last time we
checked, a 78-year-old man does not exactly belong to the generation
of youths, even if he continues to hold away at the top echelon of the
ruling party. The sincerity of that statement is therefore in doubt.
”As for the PDP Chairman’s admonition to the youth to start preparing
to take over the mantle of leadership, the question to ask is whether
or not the undergraduates in the nation’s public universities, who
have been marooned at home for over four months now because the
PDP-led federal government repudiated the agreement it signed with
ASUU, are not part of the leaders of tomorrow?
”If Tukur believes they are, he should urgently prevail on the
government sired by his party to meet its obligation to ASUU and end
the strike by the university teachers. Then we will know that he is
serious about his postulation. Until then, we say talk is cheap,
because all that we can see now is that the PDP-led federal government
is doing everything in its power to mortgage the future of tomorrow’s
leaders,” it said.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
Interim National Publicity Secretary
