by Kolapo Olapoju
The Presidency has responded to the statement of National leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who urged President Jonathan to resign over his inability to secure the lives of Nigeria and to end the menace of Boko Haram.
On Thursday, 6 November, a statement was released by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe, who lambasted the former governor of Lagos state over his comments. Okupe stated that Tinubu and leaders of the opposition party “are a bunch of political anarchists and charlatans”.
The Senior Special Assistant also implored the APC leader to educate Nigerians on any President who has ever resigned during an ongoing war, in the history of the world.
“The suggestion by one of the leaders of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Bola Tinubu, that President Goodluck Jonathan should resign from office as a result of the activities of insurgents in the north-eastern part of the country, has once again shown beyond doubt that the former Lagos State governor and his colleagues in the opposition are a bunch of political anarchists and charlatans blinded by an unbridled appetite for power.”
“The assertion by Tinubu at a political rally in Ilorin, Kwara State on Wednesday that in ‘civilised’ societies, the President should have resigned is unfounded and lacking in historical precedence. We challenge him to tell Nigerians which part of his ‘civilised’ world has there been a call on a President to resign during an on-going war.”
“When terrorists attacked the United States of America in September 2001, the leaders of the Democratic Party did not demand a resignation of President George Bush but rather they rose in defence of the American nation to support the various measures taken by the President to defeat the al Qaeda terrorists. It is therefore unfortunate that the APC, in its desperation for power and eagerness to make selfish political gains from insecurity, has shown a total lack of the spirit of Nationalism and statesmanship in its public comments on the challenges of insurgency in the North East.”
Okupe accused the APC chieftains of using the insurgency as an avenue to chastise President Jonathan and the Nigerian Armed Forces, while also adding that instead of resorting to “brigandage”, Tinubu and the APC should go and work on their “unispiring manfestoes”.
“It is particularly sad that leaders of the APC would mount every available podium to pour invectives on the President and ridicule members of the Armed Forces of Nigeria who are in the battlefield of the war against terror in the North East of this country. Telling the President to resign because of an ongoing insurgency is the height of insensitive, indecorous and bad politics which ought to be roundly condemned by every Patriotic Nigerian.”
“We wish to the remind the likes of Senator Tinubu that by the provisions of the Nigerian constitution, the only recognized means of changing a government is through the electoral process which comes every four years.”
“If the APC leader has a problem about the chances of his political party winning an election, as he obviously does, he should not resort to brigandage, rather we will advise that they go back to the drawing board to rewrite their lack-luster, ill-defined and uninspiring manifestoes and see if they can sell it to the Nigerian public side by side with the well-articulated, dutifully executed and widely acclaimed Transformation Agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan.”
Leave a reply