The federal government has rejected the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governors’ call seeking the resignation of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu
The minister of information and national orientation, Mohammed Idris, in a statement made available to newsmen yesterday in Abuja said the call was nothing but an attempt at distraction by people who should instead be busy supporting the president’s efforts at bringing economic relief to the Nigerian people.
He said it is the considered view of the APC that the PDP and its governors were seeking, through the back door of intimidation, what they had consistently failed to achieve by democratic means, since 2015.
He said those who could not bring transformational change when they had a lengthy chance to do so should not seek to interrupt or distract those who are busy at work on the presidential vision that Nigerians elected them to implement.
Idris emphasised that the administration of Tinubu had also, since inception, generously extended financial support to all the state governments, regardless of partisan affiliation.
“In addition, the removal of the petrol subsidy—which, incidentally, was one of the main planks of the PDP presidential campaign—has swelled the revenues of all states, including the PDP states.
“To whom more has been given, more is therefore expected,” he said.
According to him, the president and his administration recognise the unfinished business of revamping the nation’s economy kick-started by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, through programmes focused on large-scale infrastructure, social welfare, prioritizing the equipping and welfare of the military and security agencies, and reclaiming Nigeria’s strategic place in the comity of nations.
He stated that Boko Haram and its affiliates, on the ascendancy in 2014/2015, have since been decimated, and similar bold gains are now being made with bandits and other criminals.
“Nigerians have not forgotten that it was the APC administration that cleared several liabilities left behind by the PDP government, such as subsidy claims by oil marketers, Paris Club Refunds, unpaid pensions, gratuities, and salary arrears owed various categories of pensioners from liquidated and existing state-owned enterprises,” he said.
Idris said major oil sector reforms that the PDP touted for years but could not deliver – passage of the PIB, new refineries, as well as the revamping of existing ones, and so on – are the very real and continuing legacies of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He said all of these had been accomplished without access to the oil windfall that the PDP government enjoyed for much of the time it was in power, and also against the backdrop of the most devastating global shock since the Second World War – the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We must continue to state these facts so Nigerians will know where we are coming from, and appreciate what is being done in its full context,” he said.
He said Tinubu is not, and will never be, overwhelmed by the current challenges the country is facing, nor will he abdicate his responsibilities.
“He has also never shied away from acknowledging the pain of ongoing reforms, and has seized every opportunity to assure Nigerians that inside the pain of the reforms lie the seeds of lasting prosperity and national development,” he said.
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