All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Organization has said that the sudden emergence of fuel scarcity and consequent long fuel queues in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja and some parts of the country as well as the gross reduction in the hours of electricity supply across the country by electricity providers, have shown the ugly face of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
APC Presidential campaign organization wondered, in a statement by its director of media and publicity, Garba Shehu, how a political party which has been in power for 16 years and which is unable to ensure that its citizens enjoy regular fuel supply being an oil producing and endowed country and electricity, having privatized the power sector and given generous financial assistance to operators of the power sector can still feel confident to seek another term in office.
Garba Shehu said that the glaring and inexcusable failure of the PDP government in these two important areas is a sign of gross ineptitude, maladministration and corruption which is responsible for the sorry economic state in which the average citizen of Nigeria has found themselves.
He regretted that the fact that Nigerians are again being confronted with the specter of fuel scarcity so soon after the harrowing experience of last Christmas period shows that the Jonathan government can never get anything right, adding that with such government, Nigeria will continue to be an embarrassment among the oil producing countries of the world.
According to Garba Shehu, the issue is that being unable to set up even one new refinery in the past five years and unable to get existing refineries to function up to 50 per cent capacity, the people of Nigeria would need another set of people to be in charge of their affairs. “Those who man the two critical sectors of fuel and power are cronies of President Jonathan and supporters of the PDP that they have no reason to discharge their mandate in favour of the Nigerian people.
“We all remember the hype and fanfare with which the privatization of the power sector was carried out and yet majority of Nigerians are having less electric power or none at all but are forced to pay outrageous electricity bills to the operators of the power companies who are either card-carrying members of the PDP or are close associates of President Jonathan.
“To add insult to injury, the Jonathan government has also given billions of naira to these operators under the guise of assisting them to improve power supply, without result. And this happened after the sector had been sold and the facilities handed over to these private operators.
“We of the APC demand that the Jonathan government and his party explain to Nigerians the reason why fuel scarcity and blackout should persist making life a hell for Nigerians, despite huge investments and policies put in place to eradicate these problems.”
This is even as Garba Shehu saw the return of fuel queues at filling stations as a confirmation that the policies of the Jonathan administration are founded on deceit and insincerity.
He noted that the recent fuel price reductions announced by the Federal Government was borne out of political expediency, rather than compassion, adding that it was a sign that the ruling party is desperate to cling to power at all costs.
Garba Shehu said that all the emergency projects and palliatives being bandied about by the Jonathan government are intended to pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians, stressing that a PDP administration that greeted Nigerians with an unprecedented fuel price increase of N140 per liter in January 2012 has lost the basis to be trusted any further by Nigerians.
He explained said that APC is not surprised by the sudden return of fuel queues at filling stations in Abuja and other major cities, adding that they are causing undue hardships for passengers, motorists and other Nigerians, and has made nonsense of the recent Federal Government’s announced reductions in fuel prices.
According to him, the PDP’s artificial show of compassion towards Nigerians in the face of imminent electoral debacle should not fool anyone and that a ruling party that once boasted of its invincibility is now confronted with the reality of imminent defeat, which he said, has shattered the false sense of security which until recently, deluded it into ridiculous over confidence.
He emphasised the all the current PDP emergency reliefs or projects for Nigerians are borne out of the fear of defeat rather than genuine compassion for the Nigerian people describing the Jonathan government as “notoriously unreliable.”
He argued that any policies founded on deceits would collapse and expose those who thrive on duplicity, saying that the return of fuel queues is like an accident waiting to happen because the recent reductions in petroleum product prices by the Jonathan PDP administration were not based on sincerity.
The director of media and publicity for APC presidential campaign organisation said the scales have now started to drop from the eyes of Nigerians day and after day, and that they are embracing the imperatives of change for a better Nigeria. [myad]
