Thisdaylive:

Atiku, Tambuwal, Tinubu Tell Jonathan to Prepare
Handover Notes
Jonathan can’t defend our territorial integrity, says
Fashola
President Goodluck Jonathan and his party, the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday suffered another
around of attacks from the All Progressives Congress (APC) as
leading members of the opposition party took a swipe at his
administration, asking him to prepare his handover note as
the end of administration is imminent.
The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu
Tambuwal, described the head of the federal government as
a “complete failure and a disappointment to Nigerians.”
Tambuwal, who recently defected from the ruling PDP to the
APC, while speaking in Benin City, the Edo State capital, at the
sixth anniversary of the Governor Adams Oshiomhole
administration, said he accepted the invitation to join the
opposition party because the PDP had failed Nigerians.
He said what Nigerians were currently experiencing was not a
government but a cabal that hijacked the resources of the
people for their selfish interest.
The speaker admonished Nigerians not to be deceived again
by the antics of the PDP in the 2015 general election, as it had
been proven that the ruling party will not provide good
governance.
He described the APC as a movement for change with the
objective of ensuring better living condition for the people,
advising those campaigning for the re-election of Jonathan to
go and settle debts they owed the Asset Management
Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), before soliciting for votes
for him to avoid prosecution.
Tambuwal urged Jonathan to stop covering his lack of
performance with the excuse that he was being intimidated
because he comes from the minority, because what Nigerians
need is good governance and not where the person comes
from.
His words: “I accepted to join the movement for change in
Nigeria being championed by the APC because the
government at the centre has failed, and the objective of the
change movement is to provide Nigerians with uninterrupted
power supply and improved infrastructure.
“What we have at the moment is not a government but a
cabal that has hijacked the resources of the people for its
selfish interest. Nigerians should not be deceived again. It has
been proven that the PDP will not provide good governance.
What Nigerians need is good governance no matter where the
person who would provide it comes from.
Also speaking, former governor of Lagos State and national
leader of the APC, Senator Bola Tinubu, charged Nigerians to
use their votes to liberate the country from the PDP’s
imposed poverty in 2015.
He reiterated the party’s call for President Jonathan to resign,
or the APC would sweep him out of office in the forthcoming
polls, as insurgents are gradually taking over Nigeria under
his leadership.
Tinubu wondered why the president would still go ahead with
his declaration for the presidential election on Tuesday when
he should have been mourning the death of over 47 students
who were bombed in Potiskum, Yobe State, a day before his
declaration.
He contended that the insensitivity displayed by Jonathan
showed how he governs the country.
“Jonathan danced on the blood of the Yobe school children
when he went ahead with his declaration for the 2015
presidential election yesterday (Tuesday) in Abuja.
Insurgents are taking over parts of Nigeria; who is
responsible? How can soldiers who stake their lives fighting
the insurgents be rounded up and sentenced to death?
Jonathan must resign. If he fails to resign, we will sweep him
away,” Tinubu said.
Urging Nigerians to be ready to vote out the PDP in the 2015
elections, the APC leader said: “We have done it before and
we are ready to do it again. We will show them that the power
of the people is greater than the power of tyranny.”
He warned the Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) against collaborating with the PDP, saying that the APC
will resist such plot, adding that the opposition will support
the electoral body to create additional polling units, but “not
the ones with zero registered voters that would be used to rig
elections.”
On his part, Oshiomhole, who also warned against the rigging
in the next elections, said any attempt by the PDP-led federal
government to use the military to rig the polls would be
resisted.
He said: “Nobody born by a woman will govern Nigeria in
2015 with a stolen mandate. So, let them stop using the
language ‘fall’ because we are ready to defend our land. And
any attempt to use the armed forces to rig the elections, it will
be fire for fire. We will stand and defend our democracy
because only a coward dies a million times before his death.”
Reacting to the recent declaration by President Jonathan that
“Edo State will fall to the PDP” 2015, Oshiomhole advised the
president to look elsewhere for support in his re-election bid,
as Edo people will this time not vote on the basis of tribalism.
He also said that the state “is not an enemy territory,” but one
that has come to stay.
“In 2015, Edo people will not vote on the basis of tribalism
but on the basis of who will provide power. For as long as the
PDP is in power, Nigerians will be out of power; for as long as
the PDP has power, Nigerians will never have power. So, Edo
State will never fall to the PDP and we cannot be intimidated.
Former Head of State, General Muhmmadu Buhari and
former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, who also addressed
the crowd, urged Nigerians to sustain the momentum that
brought the APC to power in Edo State and extend same to
the rest of the country including the centre.
In his speech, the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-
Oyegun, said the party promises a new Nigeria, boasting that
the party will sweep the 2015 elections in the South-south
geo-political zone seen as the stronghold of President
Jonathan as well as form the government at the centre.
At a different forum yesterday, the Lagos State governor, Mr.
Babatunde Fashola, blamed President Goodluck Jonathan for
the growing activities of Boko Haram terrorists in the North-
east.
Consequently, the governor said a federal government under
the president lacked the capacity to defend the country’s
territorial integrity, citing the growing loss of the country’s
territory.
He said this at the ninth raffle of Lagos Home Ownership
Mortgage Scheme (LagosHOMs) draw at LTV 8 compound in
Agidingbi, Ikeja, calling his countrymen to cease the 2015
elections to vote out leaders that underperformed.
The governor said the federal government’s failure “to ensure
the security of lives and properties was responsible for the
insurgent’s takeover of some parts of the country.”
Fashola explained that the people of Nigeria handed the
country over to Jonathan’s administration intact, lamenting
the extent to which the country “has degenerated, so much so
that some parts of the country have fallen into the hands of
the insurgents.”
The governor said the powers that be “enjoy making
promises, they cannot keep. We have heard promises about
security, not so? Promises made four years ago. But we
handed them the Federal Republic of Nigeria, with all its
components parts intact.
“We are back four years after with some parts of Nigeria
already taken away from them and they are saying the next
four years will be better,” Fashola explained.
He urged his countrymen “to be wary of politicians who come
to them during this electoral period to make superficial
promises, noting that the electorate should assess the track
records of political office-holders and their political parties
before deciding for them.