ADC coalition slams APC again, faults FG projects report on alleged sectionalism

•ADC logo and Tinubu

The African Democratic Con­gress has faulted the report of projects location and execution recently released by the feder­al government to defend itself against accusations of section­alism by opposition parties in the country.

The ADC said the report not only confirmed the allegations which the FG intended to deny but that the figures provided in the report were questionable, reports Sunday Independent.

At an interactive session with newsmen at the weekend, the spokesman of the ADC, Bolaji Abdullahi, said: “If you take a roll call of appointments that the current administration have made and attach their positions to it, we don’t need to add any­thing.

“To be clear to you, they have engaged in a government that recognizes only a small circle of cronies and friends to operate with them.

“Now having said that, in reaction to the accusation of the government favoring a particular part of the country and ignoring a partic­ular part, the government de­cided to publish facts they hope will disprove the allegation that they have been biased against a particular part of the country. And what they ended up doing by releasing that information is confirming the allegation.

“Projects that belong to one geopolitical zone are being listed as part of the projects executed in another political zone, and you see projects repeated, double en­try for some projects.

“When you see some projects are exaggerated, a 34 kilometer road listed as 130 something ki­lometer road, then you begin to ask yourself, is it that somebody is trying to be creative with sta­tistics, trying to doctor statistics to make it fit the narrative of eq­uity and balance? Or is this sheer incompetence? Either way you look at it, it doesn’t exonerate the government.

“So what we are saying is that we will choose to say that they are competent, they are compe­tent in trying to create statistics that will suit the propaganda they try to push.

“And that was why we said what we said. You know that gov­ernment is in its panic mode, and ended up confirming rather than denying the allegation of section­alism and bias.”

Reeling out reasons why President Bola Ahmed Tinu­bu-led APC shouldn’t be given a second chance, the ADC said four years was enough for a gov­ernment to prove itself, adding that the APC government in its four years only brought poverty and hunger.

It said: “You said we’ve been critical of the ruling party, that’s our work. That’s what opposition parties do.

“And that’s what they hate most, because they want to cre­ate a condition where no one will ask questions, where no one will shine the light on what they are doing. But that’s our work as op­position parties.

“Now, having said that, the question of whether four years is enough, yes, we’ve seen peo­ple who have recorded sterling achievements within four years.

“The writers of our constitu­tion allowed for a second term for a reason, believing that when you start something in your first tenure, you can continue it in your second tenure.

“If the people are satisfied with the direction you are going, then they can give you another opportunity for another four years and no more.

“But the question is, what di­rection is this government tak­ing Nigerians? I’ll paint a picture for you.

“This is a government that removed fuel subsidy from day one. And I’m not debating wheth­er subsidy is the right thing to do or not to do.

“What I’m saying is that removal of fuel subsidy has brought untold hardship to Ni­gerians. So Nigerians are suffer­ing as a result of your removal of fuel subsidy.

“Then you add debt to that without providing any mitigat­ing intervention that will cush­ion the effect of fuel subsidy removal on the people.

“What did you do? You add­ed the devaluation of the Naira. That further eroded the purchas­ing power of the people.

“So, it means that those who were earning 30,000 Naira or 35,000 Naira minimum wage, were no longer able to use their N35,000 for what they were using it for. By the global standard, the extreme poverty line is now $2.50 per day.

“If you convert that to the de­valued Naira, that gives you like N93,000 or N94,000. So it means that even if you pay N70,000 minimum wage, majority of Nigerians will still be below the extreme poverty line.

“You didn’t stop there, you said everybody will now from January next year…..you sudden­ly realize that there is a law that allows you to charge 5% petrol tax from January next year.

“So, it means that even with your N35,000 or N70,000, if you buy petrol, as a vulcanizer run­ning your small business in your corner, if you buy petrol, you pay 5% on every single liter of petrol that you buy.

“You didn’t stop there. An­other 5% on aviation tax, which means that for you to fly in Nige­ria, flight ticket is already being priced beyond the reach of the average middle class person, who want to do business and fly from Lagos to Abuja.

“When you add 5% aviation tax, it means the airlines will pass it on, because it’s VAT, they will pass on the cost to the passengers. What exactly did we vote this government to do, to kill us? No, because there is something punitive about what they are doing.”

The ADC further stated why it would be wrong to give APC an­other chance of four years, add­ing, “When you are telling me to give them another four years, is it to push us to the lagoon?”

It continued: “So, it leads you to ask yourself, who ex­actly is running this country? Regardless of the technical correctness of your policies, if it’s going to break the back of your citizens, what do you do? You say no.

“They said they have to take tough economic measures to stabilize the economy, that peo­ple have to make sacrifices. And we ask, can you tell us where all this is leading us?

“It’s not about whether four years is enough. It’s about we don’t know the direction this government is taking us. It’s not a question of whether President Tinubu is a good driver of the economy or a bad driver of the economy.

“The problem is that we don’t know where this driver is taking us, we don’t even know who the driver is.

“It’s not about the issue of four years, eight years and all that. In the constitution, they didn’t say eight years concurrent.

“It means that you can do four years and take a break and give yourself an opportunity to evalu­ate what you have done and come back in the future.”