The All Progressives Congress (APC) is set to unveil its “Road map to
a New Nigeria” at the Party’s National Summit to be held in Abuja on
Thursday, March 6th.
The Interim National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, said in a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday that the Road
map will detail the party’s priorities in fixing the widespread
failings of successive PDP governments since 1999, in order to bring
hope and succour to the long-suffering people of Nigeria.
It said the Road map was a product of an empirical and painstaking
process embarked upon by the APC, in a deviation from the old practice
of packaging such documents on a whim.
”With conditions deteriorating throughout Nigeria, with security an
ever increasing concern, with the lack of jobs pushing families and
young people further and further into poverty and with new stories of
corruption within the PDP government appearing day after day, the APC
decided to commission the largest ever public opinion survey in
Nigerian history to determine the current status of things in the
nation directly from those who knew best – the actual people of
Nigeria.
”The results were even more revealing than the APC had anticipated:
When asked, ‘If the election were held today, would you vote for
Goodluck Jonathan or the candidate of the All Progressives Congress’,
the APC candidate held a ten-point lead over the President. By a
margin of 44% to 34% (with 22% undecided), the APC candidate was the
clear national choice.
”When asked, ‘In general, do you think things in Nigeria are going in
a good direction or bad direction’, by a staggering more than
two-to-one margin (50%-24%), Nigerians responded that the country was
going in a bad direction. When asked, ‘What issue would you like the
President and National Assembly to focus on most’, an overwhelming
majority (60%) said jobs was the dominant issue that the government
should address.
”And then when asked if they found the following statement convincing
or note, ‘Goodluck Jonathan has done nothing to create jobs, and far
too many people are still unemployed’, decisively, 58% of Nigerians
found that argument about Jonathan convincing.
Finally when asked if Jonathan was doing a good or bad job fighting
corruption, 59% Nigerians thought Jonathan was doing a bad job
fighting corruption.
”The voice of the people was clear: The nation is going in the wrong
direction. The nation wants change and would not vote to re-elect
Jonathan in part because the number one issue to Nigerians is jobs and
the nation believes Jonathan has no credibility on the issue of job
creation,” APC said.
According to the party, the unveiling of the party’s Road map,
designed with the survey results in mind and the real needs of the
Nigerian people made evident by the people themselves, will be the
clearest indication yet that the Movement for Change has indeed begun.
Alhaji Lai Mohammed
Interim National Publicity Secretary
