Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has said Nigerians need no ‘marking scheme’ to assess the Jonathan administration or any administration at all, noting that the people know when a government has impacted positively on their lives.
In a statement on Thursday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party also reminded President Goodluck Jonathan that it is not the business of the opposition to spoon-feed his Administration on how to govern, even though the party has, time and again, gone out of its way to proffer solutions to the myriad of problems facing the nation, out of sheer patriotism.
”Needless to say that such suggestions from us and other well-meaning groups and individuals have been so arrogantly ignored by the administration,” it said.
ACN wondered why President Jonathan is suddenly irritated that Nigerians have not given his administration a pass mark, after about three years in the saddle and two years since he was elected.
”Mr. President, Nigerians need no marking scheme to know that the rate of unemployment went up, under your watch, to an unprecedented 23.9% by December 2011, according to figures given by the National Bureau of Statistics. Today, the figure must be hovering above the 50% mark!
”Mr. President, Nigerians need no marking scheme to know that under your watch, security of lives and property, as well as the welfare of the citizens – the raison d’etre of any government – are at the lowest ebb. A day before you demanded a marking scheme from Nigerians instead of giving them better life, a popular musician was attacked by a nine-man gang that snatched his car and deprived him of his money in the country’s economic capital city – the fate being suffered daily by millions of your compatriots!
”Mr. President, what marking scheme does one need to know that despite the seemingly impressive economic figures being reeled out by your administration, the average Nigerian is worse off today than he or she was before you assumed office? What we are seeing is growth without development. The so-called 6.5% economic growth announced by your Finance Minister is meaningful only on paper. How does that help the thousands of university graduates who are scrambling to work as truck drivers? How does it make Lagos-Ibadan expressway or the East-West road safer for Nigerians?
”Mr. President, what has been the impact for Nigerians of the high foreign reserves figure and the stable exchange rates for the naira reeled out by your Finance Minister? Is it not a cruel irony that as Mr. President was luxuriating in phantom economic indices on the second anniversary of his administration, Nigerians across the land could not even watch him on television because the power situation has been exceptionally poor in recent times?
”And in case Mr. President thinks it is only the opposition and the media – his administration’s favourite whipping boys – that are scoring his administration low, the Washington-based global advocacy and campaigning organisation, ONE, was listing Nigeria – under President Jonathan’s watch – and DR Congo among ”laggard countries” pulling Africa back from reaching the MDG goals by 2015? Surely, this global body did not use any ‘Jonathan-style marking scheme’ to name Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Ghana and Ethiopia as the top performing countries in Africa (on the MDGs), even when they are less endowed than Nigeria?” ACN queried.
The party said it would not have wasted its energy on commenting on the mid-term performance record of the Jonathan Administration, had the President not disingenuously decided to blame imaginary enemies of his administration for his token achievements in the face of mounting challenges facing the country.
It urged President Jonathan to shut his ears to praise-singers, especially those of the pig-at-the-trough hue from across the Atlantic who have never seen an African government, no matter its governance record, that is unworthy of their association, as they hunt for cheap funds from despotic governments across the continent to rehabilitate themselves back home.
”Mr. President, it is never too late for you to put your shoulder to the wheel, shun the political jobbers around you, reinvigorate your cabinet by chasing away the deadwood there – though some of them come highly recommended on paper – and giving Nigerians a more purposeful governance.
”When that happens, Mr. President, you will not need to waste valuable time on lecturing your much-sapped compatriots on how to assess your administration, and you would have succeeded in rending those seemingly implacable critics of yours in the media and the opposition jobless,” ACN said.
