PDP Dismisses APC's Blueprint, Says It's A Basket Of Empty Shells

The Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) has described the blueprint
of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as unfolded
on Wednesday at the British House of Commons
by the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria
(ACN), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as a basket of empty
shells.
A statement issued by the National Publicity
Secretary of PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, on
Wednesday, said the event was “an attempt to
deodorise the stench of inadequacies that have
dogged the yet-to-be registered party.”
"It was a let down yesterday as the leader of the
ACN, Bola Tinubu stunned an international
audience with the emptiness he unveiled as the
emancipation package of the APC. It is an agenda
grossly lacking in essentials, in fundamentals; deep
in cosmetics, devoid of originality, laced with half
truths and outright lies and grittily divorced from
the substance and incidentals that ginger national
growth. It is a basket of promise filled with shells, "
Metuh said in the statement.
The party said nothing exposed the un-
seriousness of Tinubu's presentation than his loud
silence on corruption and the alternative roadmap
to the extant security challenges which the
opposition coalition has made so much noise
about.
" Members of the British Parliament must have
giggled and waited in vain for Mr. Tinubu to unveil
the much vaunted opposition agenda on anti-
terrorism and corruption. Is it that the APC has no
answers to these or that Tinubu deliberately
skipped them?
"Here, curious minds reflect on two things. The
PDP-led Federal Government has applied the
master strategy that is already yielding results; thus
leaving the opposition bereft of fresh, better
dimension as an alternative or that the man who
appeared in the British House of Commons is the
least qualified to speak on corruption and
terrorism before such a self respecting and well
meaning assembly with an in-depth grip on
happenings in Nigeria,” the statement said.
"Indeed, the leader of the ACN, as we speak, has
an unsettled issues of corruption and questionable
credentials while it is obvious to all Nigerians that
the leaders of the opposition are the chief
promoters of insurgency in the country. This
voyage of ridicule turned full circle as in Tinibu's
entourage was also, the Speaker of the Lagos State
House of Assembly, a man currently standing trial
for acts of corruption. How then could the
delegation have made a presentation on
corruption?”
On the issue of National Social Security, the PDP
wondered why the states being governed by the
opposition party have not been implementing it if
it is such a laudable programme knowing that
under Nigeria's federalism, the states suffer no
restriction over such matters.
" Why is the opposition waiting to get to the centre
before implementing this? Why did Tinubu not
implement this as Lagos State governor for eight
years? Why are the six ACN states over which
Tinubu is the overlord not implementing this?
Promises are easily made. If Tinubu as Lagos
governor denied workers wage increment and
denied pensioners the benefits of decades of
service, how could the APC government which he
canvasses take care of the aged and the vulnerable
under the social security programme? Nigerians
need eggs no doubt but not their empty shells!
“Similarly, the school feeding programme which
the APC paraded as one of its cardinal agenda is in
fact a programme under various stages of
implementation since it was launched in
September 2005 by former President Olusegun
Obasanjo. In fact, some of the PDP states have
gone beyond meal-a-day to other
accompaniments that make learning easy for the
Nigerian child," the statement said.
According to PDP, "While Tinubu was in the UK
unfolding the opposition agenda on education,
teachers in Ogun, an opposition state locked the
classrooms and chased school children home in
strike over lingering issues of service. In Ekiti and
Osun States also under the ACN, strikes have been
the order of school curriculum for over a year
now. Who then takes the opposition serious?"
"Tinubu's sermon on credible election and the
state of democracy in Nigeria flies in the face of
consistent knockings of the shenanigans that play
out in the opposition states as Local Government
elections.
The same international community that Tinubu
wanted to convince there is no democracy in
Nigeria is the same community that adjudged the
2011 general elections as the most credible in our
recent history.
" There is no democracy under PDP, yet, President
Goodluck Jonathan in 2012, went to Edo, a
competitively PDP state; assured of a credible poll
and delivered same. In Ondo, another state under
the opposition, where PDP no doubt has deep
roots; the President again demonstrated that the
history of flawed elections is gone in Nigeria. What
then is democracy?
“What then is credible election? Who listens to the
hyperactive lies of the Nigerian opposition than
those of their hue who already know they don't
have the structures and the unity ( already seen in
wide division APC leadership slots) to win the 2015
general elections and are therefore fashioning out
reasons well ahead of time."
Challenging the opposition party to a debate on
the alternative roadmap to what the PDP-led
Federal Government is doing at present, the ruling
party said ”With an empirical comparison of the
pace of development at the centre and the states
under the opposition on one hand and these
states against those under the PDP on the other,
Nigerians are no doubt a better judge of who
enjoys their mandate in in 2015."