The Peoples Democratic Party has said that no change could be better
than the rapid change in all sectors which Nigeria has undergone in
the last four years, declaring the continuity of President Goodluck
Jonathan as the real change the nation needs.
A statement by the national Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metuh
, Tuesday said no administration in the history of Nigeria has turned in
high flying, all sector delivery in its first four years as President
Jonathan, saying that in adopting change as its slogan, the APC has
shown it is out of tune with reality as change has since begun under
the present administration .
The Party further argued that the mark of true leadership is the ability
to stay the course notwithstanding the level of distractions
orchestrated to make the leader lose focus, saying that President
Jonathan has beaten every adversity to achieve an unprecedented
transformation of Nigeria.
“What change is greater than an unimpeachable delivery in both
fundamentals and incidentals of democracy? The basic and true test of
democracy lies in the level of freedom available to the citizenry, in
the separation of powers and in the value attached to the expressed
wishes of the people in timely polls. To these cardinals of democracy,
President Jonathan has been a slave!
“The change lies in the change of values and attitudes towards
decades-long corruption as occasioned by the firm stand of President
Jonathan on zero tolerance and in establishing the Freedom of
information law which have made Nigerians discuss freely and expose
corruption while government battle the ill within the ambit of the law.
“Today under President Jonathan, Nigerians relish in all fundamental
freedoms even to a level where the opposition denigrate the person and
the office of the President, yet no one is harassed and none, a
political prisoner. Besides, the legacy of credible elections instituted
in 2011 has gathered enough steam with President Jonathan’s insistence
on one man, one vote. Votes now count and for the first time in our
recent history, Nigerians raise their voters cards (PVC) in pride as a
sign of strength and weapon for the enthronement of leaders of their
choice.
“The change, the statement continued, lies in the continuity of the
current infrastructural turn around where a lethargy in the unbundling
of the energy sector was swiftly overcome and more power stations
completed to up and stablise power supply as the critical base for
accelerated development. The change is where a record 25,000 out of
35,000 km of Federal roads were either re-constructed or rehabilitated
in just four years and railways long abandoned for decades now back on
steam.
“There can be no better change better than in the diversification of the
economy and where the investment friendly environment created by the
Jonathan administration has buoyed up the economy with local and foreign
investments; importantly, strengthening genuine local entrepreneurs for
global competition, with automobiles for example now manufactured
Nigeria.
According to the PDP, “the change that Nigerians yearn for is that which
consolidates the capacity of a leader who established fourteen new
federal universities in four years; holds close to the heart, the future
of the children of the poorest of the poor in establishing the Almajiri
and out-of -school children education system.”
–
“The change lies in that leader who knowing the critical importance of
health and agriculture in directly impacting on the well being of the
citizens engineered a radical change that removed a corrupt fertilizer
and other agro-input distribution mechanism, gingering productivity by 9
metic tons of food and shutting down food import by USD 5.3 billion in
2014 while creating over 2.7 million direct farm jobs. He also
repositioned health services, returning federal health institutions to
real referral centers of excellence with capacity for treating all
ailments and raising life expectancy to 53 years from 49years.
The PDP further charged that the opposition slogan of change is a mask
for their inability to fashion out an alternative roadmap to greatness,
urging Nigerians to ask them if their meaning of change is a return to ‘
Egypt’ where Nigerians queue up for days to buy petroleum products or
the reversal of the realty of today where indigenous Nigerian oil and
gas companies have been empowered and are now masters of the turf.
” We wish Nigerians to ask whether change means a return to an era where
governments bought no single weapon for the armed forces to build its
strength and make it formidable.
“Nigerians deserve to know whether change means a throw back to the
time where instead of using institutional means to fight corruption
within the ambit of the law, government would use extra judicial
instruments to deprive Nigerians of the very essence of democracy in the
name of fighting corruption.
According to the statement, ” since no one changes a winning team, more
so where the opposition has no better alternative except in sloganeering
‘change’, the change remains the continuity of the excels of the present
PDP government, through a leader who has shown absolute faith in God,
fidelity to the laws of the country and respect for the rights of his
compatriots. “