APC faults Jonathan’s scorecard

The All Progressives Congress on Sunday described the almost 60 months of the Peoples Democratic Party-led administration as one of the worst in the nation’s history.
APC also dismissed the scorecard reeled out by President Goodluck Jonathan during his declaration for the second term as “a scorecard of failure” and “claims of phantom achievements.”
This was contained in a statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in Abuja.
According to the party, Nigerians cannot wait to sweep away the administration.

The party argued that the party President failed to get the usual bounce from such declarations because Nigerians were not the least impressed by the so-called achievements, which have not positively impacted on the lives of the citizens.

The statement partly read: “Mr. President, Nigerians have asked themselves a simple question: Are we better off today than we were before President Jonathan assumed office, and they have unanimously answered in the negative. This is why your declaration failed to resonate, despite the hired crowds you ferried to Abuja.”

In what it said was its own scorecard of the Jonathan administration, the APC said, “Today, after the Jonathan “Administration has spent $32 billion on security and defence, Nigeria is not any safer, with thousands of deaths, 221,000 square kilometres of territory captured by Boko Haram, 650,000 Nigerians internally displaced and also a daily harvest of death from ethno-religious crisis, clashes between pastoralists and farmers, armed robberies and kidnapping.

“To make matters worse, our once proud and globally-acknowledged military has been brought to its knees by lack of necessary fighting equipment, even with $32 billion spent. One wonders where the huge funds went to.”

APC also scored the administration low in the area of job creation. It explained that while the government claimed to have created 1.9 million jobs in all of five years, the truth is that this is a mere tokenism.

The party observed that the situation on the ground is grim: 1.8 million Nigerians enter the job market every year, 5.3 million youth are unemployed and overall 20 million Nigerians are in the job market, and these are very conservative figures.
It also faulted the President’s handling of the nation’s corruption scourge. The party said Nigeria’s corruption rating has worsened since the present administration came into being.