PDP: Jonathan’s achievements completely dwarf Buhari’s wasted years

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says there are no indices anywhere in the world, by which the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari can be measured as performing better than any PDP administration since 1999.

In a statement on Tuesday, Dayo Adeyeye, national publicity secretary of the PDP, said the achievements of former President Goodluck Jonathan and other PDP administrations “completely dwarf the wasted years of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

“For the sake of emphasis, we reiterate our position that the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan performed well during its term in office. There are no indices anywhere in Nigeria, or indeed in the world, by which the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari can be measured as performing better than any PDP administration since 1999,” Adeyeye said.

“The list of achievements of the Jonathan administration, and indeed past PDP administrations, are too numerous to mention and completely dwarf the wasted years of APC’s governance.”

He said the “professional propagandists” of the APC would soon realise that it is late to be blaming past administrations without fixing the country’s problems.

Adeyeye said the APC should note that Nigerians were suffering under the weight of its anti-people policies.

“It is necessary to inform the ruling party that Nigerians are suffering under the weight of the anti-people policies they have been forced to live and do business under. As a result, the ruling party’s days at the helm of affairs are numbered,” he said.

“The professional propagandists of the APC will realise too late that blaming the ills of the country on past administrations while doing nothing about them for four clear years will not save them on the day of judgement. And the day of reckoning is very much at hand.”

The publicity secretary said it “is shameful and embarrassing that having been in power for two and a half years, the ruling party is unable to point to cogent, convincing and data driven achievements.”

He said the APC has spent its time “designing and implementing a communication strategy around massive propaganda, half truths and outright falsehood in an attempt to continually deceive the Nigerian people”.

He listed treasury savings account (TSA), government integrated financial management information system (GIFMIS) and the integrated payroll and personnel information system (IPPIS) as some of the achievements of the Jonathan administration.

“When added to other institutional anti-corruption tools like the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Crimes Commission (ICPC), our party instituted the existing institutional framework with which to fight corruption,” the spokesman said.

“It is important to note that several senior members of APC who constantly feel the need to deride and denigrate our party using falsehoods as a foundation were once members of our party. It is important to point out, for instance, that Alhaji Bolaji Ojo-Abdullahi was a minister under the Jonathan administration, chief Segun Oni was also a former member of our party on whose platform he rose to become governor of Ekiti state.

“Having served in such offices, it does not lie in the mouth of such men to state that PDP failed Nigerians. If these men, and others of their ilk find it so convenient to deny their past, we wonder what they will say about the present in the near future.”

The two major parties in the country have been engaged in a war of words since the non-elective convention of the PDP, which held on Saturday.