The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo going from market to market ‘hawking’ N10,000 in the name of Trader moni is a sign of underemployment, saying this could not have happened in a serious country.
The presidential spokesperson of the party, Mr. Akin Osuntokun, disclosed this Tuesday while featuring on ARISE News TV, the broadcast arm of THISDAY, where he also said that sharing of N10,000 would not help the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government going into the general election.
He said: “Nigerians are not that gullible. Sharing N10,000 in few weeks to the elections will not help this government, unless you are implying that Nigerians are gullible. A country and electorate that vote on that basis has a problem; you campaign on what you have done.
“That is an indication of a vice-president who is underemployed. The vice-president of a serious country of 180 million people going around markets and motor parks hawking N10,000; is that governance? That is a joke.
“Have you ever heard it in any serious country where the vice-president goes from door to door to campaign. The vice-president of Nigeria, their job is 24 hours, the complexity of Nigeria governance alone. If that is the priority of a vice-president, knocking from door to door, then, that is an explanation of why the government has failed.”
Commenting on the ‘Operation Python Dance 3’ by the military, the main opposition party said that the APC government has served sufficient notice that it has bad fate in the coming election, stressing that the refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to sign the electoral bill was a good example.
Osuntokun said: “A president that is interested in conducting a credible elections, will he be vouching and dancing on the electoral bill? So, you already have the indication of what is ahead. If morning shows the day, what we are seeing is not a preparation to free and fair election.
“If you look at their record in Osun and Ekiti States; Osun State election was practically stolen. So, you don’t give that kind of person the benefit of the doubt.
“At their presidential primary, APC claimed that 14 million voters voted for him. So, you can see that they have already given you work to the answer.
If 14 million people can vote for you in a primary, you are already home and dry. That is what they are telling you. It is being pre-rigged, the mentality is being fostered, which is a lie.
“There is no basis for that. We hope for it (free and fair election). We hope for the best, we prepare for the worst.”
Asked if the PDP would subscribe to the postponement of elections in the North-east in view of the worsening security situation there, Osuntokun said: “You could only give a benefit of the doubt for a government that has demonstrated good fate, not the one that has done the contrary.
“If you are already giving indications regardless of security situations in the North-east that you want to manipulate the election one way or the other, nobody will accept this from you.”
He noted that it was the responsibility of the government to secure the country at all times, including during elections.
“On what basis do I take what this government is saying in good fate. The behaviour of this government as regards to 2019 has been very suspicious, the electoral bill is for instance,” Osuntokun insisted.
He noted that the allegation that the PDP administration mismanaged the country for 16 years was the propaganda of the APC.
“This president has commissioned three projects that were fully paid for by the Jonathan administration before he left; the Abuja-Kaduna railway, the Port Harcourt Airport, and the Abuja Airport. The only part of this president in the achievement of that is only commissioning. But you will never hear this from them,” he said.
He pointed out that the Buhari administration has been rated by all international corruption rating agencies as worse than the previous government.
Osuntokun explained that when this government was coming into office, by its own proposition, it said Nigerians should judge it in these priority areas:
anti-corruption, economy and security, but noted that on those three scores, the country has regressed.
“In reality, I don’t think they were prepared for government, they didn’t expect to win, maybe it caught them by surprise, because this is not an indication of a government that was prepared for the task.
“Some weeks ago, Buhari blamed his inability to appoint ministers for six months on former President Goodluck Jonathan,” he said He stressed that Buhari’s integrity is a myth, saying that it took him months to sack the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Babachir Lawal, adding that the moment you move from PDP to APC, you are sanctified.
He said that under the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo that a former Inspector General of Police (IG) Tafa Balogun was put in handcuffs for corruption, while some ministers — Sunday Afolabi, Douglas Osuji — were equally prosecuted.
“Ibrahim Magu would have done better under any other administration than this. As the so-called anti-corruption fight of this government being acknowledged by any non-partisan body, not one? Tell me one APC member that has been convicted or charged to court under this government?” He asked.
