The governing All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, launched an attack on the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar insisting that their campaign strategy may be their greatest undoing ahead of the general elections, even as it added that the party, its candidate and programmes were not marketable.
The APC while reviewing 2018, however admitted that the year was difficult for the party and blamed it on those who had defected from its fold, alleging that they were the clogs in the wheels of progress.
The national publicity secretary of the party, Mallam Lanre Issa-Onilu, made these assertions during a press briefing.
He insisted that there has been no job loss under President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Onilu who condemned the strategic action plan released by Alhaji Atiku, stated that “Their Dubai-made strategy has collapsed like a pack of cards”, insisting that many opposition figures are no longer comfortable in the PDP.
“As frustrating as their activities were in 2018, they met more than their match in President Muhammadu Buhari. Their Dubai-made strategy has collapsed like a pack of cards. The plan was to recreate the 2014/2015 scenario when APC pilloried them for their crimes, which woken the electorate to the reality of the disaster we were headed under the PDP government. PDP, led by their discredited presidential candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku paid huge sums of money to some foreign con men in Dubai who posed as strategists.
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“They began to spurn daily fake news and make spurious and unsubstantiated allegations against our President, the family members of our President, the Vice President, the APC national chairman, notable government officials, and public institutions to deceive Nigerians. Their strategists did not tell them that such would not work when the allegations cannot be proven. Unlike in 2015 when the APC allegations were based on facts, which have been validated by revelations upon revelations of heist committed during the inglorious 16 years of PDP rule, the opposition’s disgraceful recourse to false alarm as a campaign strategy this time is a wrong approach. Facts are sacred. Falsehood, no matter how fleet-footed, would be overtaken by the truth in no time.
“The reality has dawned on the fortune seekers in PDP that it is not possible to tag a label of corruption on President Buhari as a demarketing strategy. Neither is it possible to campaign based on issues of governance as the achievements of this administration have shown. It is obvious that the PDP has found itself in a fix,” Onilu said.
When asked to comment on the recent report released by the Bureau of Statistics on job losses under the current administration, Onilu said: “The statistics you refer to, I don’t know what specific statistic you are talking about, if its about unemployment, you need to go and check the statistic again, and you need to compare the difference between unemployment and job loss.
“If it’s about job loss then you will commend this government, that since when this government came, all those factors that will lead to job loss are not there. The private sector is being encouraged. Issue of agriculture, we all know what agriculture has done to this country, nobody can deny that anymore, it is very obvious. And the biggest employer of labour, is that sector, and is the sector where Nigeria has recorded the biggest growth in the last three years.
“So, what about job gains from such sector? From government institutions, is there any government institution you would say has laid of any worker in the last three years? What we have is a situation where salaries have been paid regularly. Allowances have paid regularly. Pensions have been paid to those who have left the services and have not been paid for donkey years. So, what factors will lead to the job loss that we are talking about? Unemployment is a different issue, is not the same as job loss.
“What account for unemployment is a progressive degeneration that happened to this country over the cause of the period that PDP was in power, and what this government has done is to continue to create the environment, where we are moving gradually from that mono economy, complete defendant on oil to an economy where people have choices, and that is the environment that encourages individual to be creative, to be able to apply himself to all the opportunities that are available. So, today any able Nigerian who wishes to employ himself can do so, because the support system is impressive and is working.”
