New Year: APC, PDP, Atiku Celebrate With Nigerians

New Year: APC, PDP, Atiku Celebrate With Nigerians

POLITICS DIGEST – As the year 2020 sets in, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have joined millions of Nigerians to celebrate, calling on them to work hard for a better country.

In its New Year message to Nigerians, the APC assured that the party’s administration under President Muhammadu Buhari will provide more dividends of democracy in 2020.

The party promised that in the New Year, government will further intensify faithful execution of policies and programs of the current administration.

In a statement by its national publicity secretary, Lanre Issa – Onilu, the APC reeled out the achievements of its government which it claimed has brought succour to the citizenry.

“With our country’s landmark return to the January-December budget cycle – a feat achieved by the APC-led National Assembly and Executive after 16 years of the PDP failure, Nigerians are assured that the ongoing massive infrastructural development covering the rail, road, agriculture, aviation, port, education and health sectors would be given further fillip.

“The President Muhammadu Buhari government is vigorously tackling and solving the social, economic and security challenges our country faces one after the other.

“Government’s successes in plugging revenue leakages, checking violent extremism, oil sector reforms, anti-corruption, economic diversification, curbing waste, infrastructure development among other achievements are profound testament”, the party claimed.

It acknowledged the trust and faith Nigerians have placed in the APC-led federal government. While promising not to let Nigerians down, the party urged the people to also play their part by cooperating with the government to achieve its development plans for shared progress.

It tasked its teeming members and supportersto remain a progressive, strong, formidable and popular political unit capable of delivering pro-people policies and repositioning the country through APC elected and appointed officials at federal, state and local government levels.

Looking forward to a more vibrant and united party, the APC called on its members “to support and cooperate with the recently-constituted National Reconciliation Committee which is empowered to address grieviances of party members and resolve existing conflicts, all with a view to fostering unity and oneness within the party across the country”.

While enjoining the citizenry, civil society groups and the media to come together to work for a better country in 2020, the PDP through its national chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, and the party’s candidate in the 2019 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, agreed that Nigerians do not fare well under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari – led All Progressives Congress (APC) last year.

While Secondus in his New Year message said institutions of democracy were worst hit by the maladministration of the Buhari government in 2019, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar identified the scourge of insecurity and continued nose – diving of the nation’s economy as a common enemy that all must strive to confront in Year 2020.

The PDP national chairman stated that President Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress have laid landmines that may explode and ground the country in 2020 and warned Nigerians to brace up for the dictatorial regime in the new year.

Reviewing the activities of the past twelve months in the country, Secondus lamented that 2019 remained the worst year for democracy in Nigeria.

He noted that the worst form of vandalisation was done to democracy and rule of law in the country in the outgone year and blamed it on the anti-democratic forces being breed and nurtured by the APC to achieve its one party agenda for the country.

The PDP boss said in a new year message to Nigerians released on Tuesday that the rape done to democracy in 2019 during the February and March general elections set the nation’s democratic journey many years backward and laid foundation for a wobbling 2020 politically and economically.

“The use of military in the election matters and the intimidation and harassment of democratic institutions that was climaxed in the burning to death Mrs. Salome Acheju Abu in Kogi State last November continues to raise concern over citizens’ right to vote under this regime,” he said.

Prince Secondus noted in a statement from his media office signed by Ike Abonyi that in the outgone year, the APC administration dragged down the country and many are no longer proud to hold the national passport.

He said that with the judiciary caged, the legislature ready and willing to rubber stamp whatever comes from the Executive, Media and the opposition intimidated, Nigerians should await the fang of a dictator wearing the apparel of a democrat.

He also said that with the huge loan demands passing through the National Assembly without scrutiny coupled with the accompanying high taxation bills from the executive, 2020 portends further hard times for Nigerians.

According to the opposition leader, 2020 is going to be tough with the high level of corruption already rated by experts to be worse under this administration as they continue to look away to reported cases of fraud involving high profile members of the regime.

The PDP national chairman added that the ineptitude that has engulfed the oil sector and various agencies of government as square pegs are put in round holes at the expense of merits.

He, however, urged Nigerians to refuse to be deterred by the impunity and provocative attitude of the ruling APC whose agenda is to run a despotic regime disregarding the rule of law and tenets of democracy.

The PDP national chairman appealed to all critical stakeholders in the nation’s democracy particularly the media and civil society groups to remain alert to their responsibilities and hold APC administration accountable in 2020 as its curious open visa policy has dubious political undertone.

While wishing Nigerians a prosperous 2020, Prince Secondus charged members and leaders of PDP to put all hands on deck in the New Year as the task ahead is enormous but surmountable with God on the side of the just.

Meanwhile, in a New Year message he personally issued on Tuesday, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last general election, Alhaij Atiku Abubakar, said it is more important for all to stay together than ever before to take on, head front, the common enemy of insecurity that challenge everyday lives of Nigerians.

While describing as sentimental, the notion that by some people that the year 2019 was a successful for Nigerians, he said such sentiments is reductionist and does the harm of making Nigerians have a false sense of victory.

Rather, he said, Nigeria is still in the throes of economic instability, with more people losing jobs and the attendant outcome of more children being out of school and more families having hard time in accessing basic needs of life.

Building a sense of hope in the New Year, Atiku said: “I will rather ask that Nigerians stand together with renewed vigour and determination to battle the hydra-headed demon of insecurity that has plagued us in the past decade.

“We must challenge the inadequacies that made us become the global headquarters of extreme poverty; much as we must work hard and fast enough to eliminate the scourge of out-of-school children in the country. These are the challenges that this new decade has thrown at us and we cannot afford to slumber and submit to defeat.

“The problems of extreme poverty and scant investments in education play huge roles in fueling the problems of violent extremism that we spent the past decade contending with. We cannot win the fight against terrorism if we do nothing to reduce or eliminate poverty and illiteracy.

“The reality of this new decade requires of us to recalibrate our approaches and to pursue some tough choices. If failure is not an option, then we must let go of our egos and conveniences.

“In this new decade, we must start to do things differently if we are honest about our desire for a better and prosperous future. There must be a deliberate effort to improve the material wellbeing of the people, by lifting millions of Nigerians out of the extreme poverty belt at a start, and to prosperity. Government must rethink many of its policies that is sinking more people into the abyss of extreme poverty.

“It is incumbent on government at all levels to pursue policies that will provide decent housing to the mass majority; put food on the table; provide healthcare and education. We cannot continue to do things the same way and expect a different outcome. It is therefore high time we caused rejig of economic policies that will promote an expansion of the economy and create jobs opportunities aplenty.

“At the individual level, this moment calls for more empathy and sacrifice. The New Year and a new decade come with the opportunity to make better impressions in our lives and in the lives of people around us”.

The Turaki Adamawa restated that the collective call for rule of law and history about the struggle for democratic rule did not envisage a situation where judicial pronouncements would be worth less than the paper upon which they are rendered.

He described as a bad advertisement for the country and its democracy if declarations made by the court are not respected without the executive arm of government agreeing to same.

“Any democracy is not worth the appellation if the principle of separation of power is not ingrained in it. In the New Year, government should not pretend to be democratic, but rather act according to the fundamentals of a democracy.

“Above all, I expect that in the New Year there will be a better observance of rule of law and greater respect for citizens’ democratic rights”, he said.