by Rachel Ogbu

Is it true that political parties against the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP are responsible for the information we get about President Goodluck Jonathan’s poor performance in government? Well, the presidency seems to think so.

New reports claim the Federal Government has accused opposition parties of deliberately misinforming Nigerians about what President Jonathan is doing for the people.

On Tuesday, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, said despite the efforts to discredit President Jonathan, he was determined to realise his administration’s transformation agenda.

“President Jonathan’s commitment to transforming this country remains unshaken despite the growing tendency of the opposition to misinform the public. It is your responsibility to stem this unwholesome trend. Make deliberate efforts to debunk the misinformation and campaigns of calumny against the government.

“You can achieve this in a coordinated and professional manner that leaves no one in doubt that this administration is living up to the promise it made to the people when it was inaugurated on May 29, 2011,” Anyim said.

Opposition party, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) was quick to react to these accusations. Its National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fasakin, reportedly said the claim by Anyim was only meant to deceive Nigerians.

However, President Jonathan had not achieved anything worthy of note except increasing the level of corruption in the country.

“In two years after his purported election, what is the achievement that is worthy of note, aside from the humongous corruptive tendency associated with his regime.  The folks around the regime are under self-delusion to think Nigerians do not know the truth. The preponderant view of the Nigerian people is never again.

“Never again shall they allow such puerile campaign slogan of ‘goodluck for me, goodluck for you, goodluck for everybody’ to hoodwink them.

“They are determined not to vote for ethno-religious sentimentality anymore. They are determined to remove cluelessness. That is the irreducible minimum from Nigerians going forward,” Fasakin said.

The Punch reports;

Anyim said this in an address he sent to the opening of a one-day workshop on Effective Information Management and Public Communication as a Key Component of the Transformation Agenda.

The workshop was organised for Special Assistants on Media and Directors of information of Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies by the office of the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Dr. Doyin Okupe, in Abuja.

The address was read on behalf of the SGF by his Special Assistant, Mr. Ferdinand Agwu.

Anyim asked those entrusted with the responsibility of managing information for government to rise to the challenge of dispelling misinformation from the public.

But the nation’s main opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria and Congress for Progressive Change –  said the accusation  was a  grand deception to deal in conjectures.

National Publicity Secretary of the ACN,   Alhaji Lai Mohammed,  said  it was inconceivable for the  Federal Government to expect the opposition to be singing its praises.

Mohammed, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents, noted that the  government  which he described as incompetent,  was only being emotional.

He  said, “Why would the opposition be expected to be the one to blow the trumpet of the Federal Government. Don’t they have people who are entrusted with that responsibility?

“Let them not be emotional; let them come out and say what we have said that is not true. I think they have a problem with their image and I think it is because of their incompetence.”

Meanwhile, a former senatorial candidate for the Action Congress of Nigeria, Dr. Ben Nwoye,  has  said events in the nation  since Jonathan assumed office  “show that he has no clear agenda for the country.”

Nwoye spoke shortly after the Enugu State congress of the party where Barth Ugwoke emerged as the state chairman of  the ACN and  Uche Ogbu , secretary.

Nwoye said  on Tuesday that  many members of the Peoples Democratic Party, including those in the   Senate and House of Representatives, would defect to  the All Progressives Congress once the party was registered.