The All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential
Campaign today declared that the President Goodluck
Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government
has wasted one trillion Naira that belongs to the Nigerian
people in his desperate quest to remain in power.
“We had expected that a President that has spent about 6
years in office with the revenues more than what all
governments before him had received will run on a record
of performance rather than peddling lies and hate media
campaigns that are accentuating ethnic and religious
tensions in the country,”
it said in a press conference in Abuja addressed by Garba
Shehu, its Director of Media and Publicity.
The APC Campaign observed that a panoramic view of how
much of Nigeria’s resources Jonathan and the PDP have
spent on print, broadcast and social media campaigns just
to damage the unassailable credential of Gen Buhari’s
integrity would confound any casual observer of the polity
in recent times.
Among them, it noted: “An average cost of a wrap around
in Tier 1 and Tier 2 newspapers in Nigeria is between N15
million to N20 million and the Jonathan campaign buys
average of 5 wrap around and front pages in a day in the
last 3 months coupled with the hundreds of billions that
have been spent on negative TV exposures on AIT, NTA
and other television and radio stations across the country.”
It further noted that President Jonathan has been criss-
crossing Nigeria, giving an average of N50 million each to
traditional rulers, most especially in the South West and the
Northern parts of Nigeria.
“This week, the President’s campaign money is being
shipped to the North. Letters in English and Hausa backed
by millions in cash are being dispatched to willing rulers in
the region. Religious leaders, trade unions, youths
organisations, professional bodies, entertainers are not
ruled out of the money sharing jamboree of President
Jonathan.”
It recalled in that regard that one pastor recently confirmed
that N7 billion was given to Pastors to spread unfounded
allegations of Islamaphobia and scare mongering against
Gen Buhari and other APC leaders.
“A president and his depraved political party that finds it
convenient to lavish billions of Naira on political
propaganda spins, but finds it difficult to remove the
corruption surrounding the access to kerosene for millions
of families in this country should not deserve the votes of
Nigerians,” the Campaign said.
It noted that the entire oil industry in Nigeria stinks of
corruption, and rather than investing its energies into how
petroleum products will be accessible to Nigerians, the
Jonathan government busies itself blindly spending money
to confuse Nigerians about the electoral choices they make.
It recalled that in various Nigerian states over the past year,
in all the geopolitical zones, teachers have gone on strike
on account of unpaid salaries, leaving millions of children
idle and without access to formal education for months at
a stretch. Similarly, many Nigerian teachers went for the
Christmas holidays without having received their November
and December salaries, it said, and many earn less than the
agreed minimum wage.
“Mindless looting of our national treasury to fund hate
campaign and rent crowd at home and abroad like the case
of rudderless Nigerians at Chatham House in London,
arming ethnic militias for election purposes will not save
this incompetent and clueless government being presided
over by President Jonathan and his party from defeat on
Saturday at the polls,” the APC Campaign Organization
promised.
It reiterated that the issues in Saturday’s election are
massive corruption in the conduct of government business,
insecurity, unemployment and systemic decay in all sectors
of our economy.
“They are the issues this government has been found
wanting by Nigerians and for which they are ready to cast
their votes for APC and our Presidential Candidate, Gen
Buhari.”
Text of the press statement:
Gentlemen of the Press you are welcome to this very
important press conference.
We will like to bring to your attention and that of Nigerians
how the President Goodluck Jonathan led Peoples
Democratic Party government is wasting one trillion Naira
that belong to Nigerian people in his self-serving and
desperate bid for a re-election at all cost in the midst of
grinding poverty his party and government has subjected
Nigerians to in the last 16 years.
It is unconscionable and height of betrayal of public trust
that a government and a President who should preside over
the husbandry and judicious use of our national patrimony
is superintending over its massive squander in a futile
attempt to stop the idea of change. Let us sound a note of
warning at this point that no amount of sponsored negative
media propaganda can stop this idea whose time has
come.
The APC Presidential Campaign and the acceptability of our
candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice
Presidential Candidate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo has
become a peoples’ movement and Nigerian masses who
are the drivers of change are the major stakeholders.
A panoramic view of how much Nigeria’s resources
Jonathan and PDP have laboriously and wantonly spent on
print, broadcast and social media campaigns just to
damage the unassailable credential of Gen Buhari’s
integrity will confound any casual observer of the polity in
recent times.
An average cost of a wrap around in Tier 1 and Tier 2
newspapers in Nigeria is between N15 million to N20
million and the Jonathan campaign buys average of 5 wrap
around and front pages in a day in the last 3 months
coupled with the hundreds of billions that have been spent
on negative TV exposures on AIT, NTA and other television
and radio stations across the country.
We had expected that a President that has spent about 6
years in office with the revenues more than what all
governments before him had received will run on a record
of performance rather than peddling lies and hate media
campaigns that are accentuating ethnic and religious
tensions in the country.
President Jonathan has been criss-crossing Nigeria giving
an average of N50 million each to traditional rulers, most
especially in the South West and the Northern parts of
Nigeria. This week, the President’s campaign money is
being shipped to the North. Letters in English and Hausa
backed by millions in cash are being dispatched to willing
rulers in the region. Religious leaders, trade unions, youths
organisations, professional bodies, entertainers are not
ruled out of the money sharing jamboree of President
Jonathan.
Gentlemen of the Press you will recall that a Pastor
recently confirmed that N7 billion was given to Pastors to
spread unfounded allegations of Islamaphobia and scare
mongering against Gen Buhari and other APC leaders.
We are very much concerned as a campaign organisation
that this hundreds of billions that have been sunk into
bottomless pit of illogical and unreasonable negative
campaign of calumny can conveniently provide basic
amenities and social services that will improve the standard
of living of our people through improvement in our
healthcare delivery system, education, road, access to
credit by rural women, improve our national electricity grid
to save businesses from collapsing under high cost of
generating their own power.
A fraction of the trillion naira hate campaign expenditure
will fund the APC programme of feeding primary school
pupils in Nigeria on one nutritional meal a day, comfortably
pay N5000 monthly to 25 million very poor Nigerians for a
year and pay unemployment benefit for one year for
graduates who can't find gainful employment one year
after NYSC which are core to the social welfare
programmes of the APC Federal government Gen Buhari
will lead.
Today, we are all witnesses to the excruciating pains our
people go through to purchase kerosene - a daily
household need of millions of families in Nigeria.
The government officially puts the price of kerosene at N50
per litre, but every household that purchases the product
daily knows that they spend more than N150 for a litre of
kerosene. Any businessman allocated kerosene by the
NNPC returns a handsome margin that goes into the
Jonathan campaign.
A president and his depraved political party that finds it
convenient to lavish billions of Naira on political
propaganda spins, but finds it difficult to remove the
corruption surrounding the access to kerosene for millions
of families in this country should not deserve the votes of
Nigerians.
The entire oil industry in Nigeria stinks of corruption, and
rather than government investing its energies into how
petroleum products will be accessible to Nigerians, the
Jonathan government busies itself blindly spending money
to confuse Nigerians about the electoral choices they make.
In various states around the country over the past year, in
all the geopolitical zones, teachers have gone on strike,
leaving millions of children idle and without access to
formal education for months at a stretch, owing to unpaid
salaries. Many Nigerian teachers went for the Christmas
holidays without having received their November and
December salaries. Many earn less than the agreed
minimum wage.
Mindless looting of our national treasury to fund hate
campaign and rent crowd at home and abroad like the case
of rudderless Nigerians at Chatham House in London,
arming ethnic militias for election purposes will not save
this incompetent and clueless government being presided
over by President Jonathan and his party from defeat on
Saturday at the polls.
The frustrations of Nigerians on the Jonathan government
are very manifest – you can almost touch it on the back of
your wrist. Therefore, this election is not about how much
the incumbent president and the ruling party can spend to
dubiously keep itself in power. And let the PDP make no
mistakes about it: this election is clearly a referendum on
the performance of the Goodluck Jonathan administration
and millions of Nigerians going to cast their ballot in this
Saturday’s election will be going there to write an epitaph
of the PDP and Jonathan government.
We want to reiterate that the issues in this election are
massive corruption in the conduct of government business,
insecurity, unemployment and systemic decay in all sectors
of our economy. They are the issues this government has
been found wanting by Nigerians and for which they are
ready to cast their votes for APC and our Presidential
Candidate, Gen Buhari.
Thank you for your kind attention and for attending this
press conference at a very short notice.
Mallam Garba Shehu
Directorate of Media and Publicity
APC Presidential Campaign Organisation CLICK HERE TO READ FULL AND TOUCHING NIGERIAN CELEBRITIES BIOGRAPHY AND SCANDALS
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