The Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to President Goodluck Jonathan, Doyin Okupe, has called on former Governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, to “adopt a higher standard of integrity as a former governor and political leader.
Speaking at a news conference in Abuja, Okupe said the lecture delivered by Tinubu in London on the theme “Leadership, National Development and The People”, was a misrepresentation of the true situation in Nigeria, especially as the government is doing its best to tackle unemployment and insecurity.
The leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, had in his speech, carpeted Jonathan’s administration, saying it lacked focus and well framed policies to deliver on Its promises.
He also used the event to reel out the manifesto of the yet-to-be registered All Progressives Congress, APC. But Okupe lamented that Tinubu was not only “wide off the mark but betrayed the hypocrisy for which the national leader of ACN and his party have become very well known.”
“Everyone claims to be democratic but not everyone is faithful to his or her word, is a clear case of self-indictment as will be evident in due course,” he said. “As any keen and discerning observer of Nigeria’s democracy will attest, Senator Tinubu and his ACN are completely lacking in democratic temper. The ACN as a party is not only undemocratic but blatantly autocratic and makes no pretenses about it.
“It is clear that ACN leadership’s understanding of democracy is tainted and skewed by his undemocratic mindset, which has seen him exert authoritarian control over the party. With such disposition, it is easy to understand his warped and defective reading of the democratic situation in Nigeria. To assert as he did in that paper that Nigeria under the leadership of President Goodluck Jonathan is a dysfunctional democracy is not only the height of ignorance but equally of unbridled mischief.”
The presidential aide said that Mr. Tinubu’s claim on Nigeria’s democracy is “nothing but wild conjecture, completely unrelated to reality.”
Okupe noted that the President was being deliberately targeted by opponents who freely and in many cases unfairly attack him.
Continuing, “It is common knowledge that no administration has been abused, lied against and harangued like the present administration under Jonathan and yet there have not been any reprisals or harassment from government agencies.
“Instead, the administration has encouraged free speech and open government. It is on record that despite the avalanche of criticisms and attacks in the media, journalists and their organisations have not been hounded or closed down as we witnessed in recent past.
“Rather than muzzle free speech, this administration has always explored the legal option in seeking redress as was the case recently with the recent Leadership Newspaper issue. Furthermore, the signing into law of the Freedom of Information Act after previous administrations had stalled it was a pointer to the inherent democratic character of the Present administration.
“Unlike the governments being run by ACN party at the state levels, the administration of President Jonathan however, has always bowed to the wishes of the Nigerian public on a number of occasions when they have disagreed with certain policies of his government.
The spokesman added that “The reversal of his decision on the removal of subsidy on petroleum products, the offer of amnesty to terrorists at the insistence of Nigerians in the northern part of the country and the decision to shelve the introduction of the N5000 note following public opposition, are three examples that will suffice in this regard.”
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