The
Federal Government has accused opposition parties of deliberately
misinforming Nigerians about the performance of President Goodluck
Jonathan.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim,
who made the allegation on Tuesday, however said Jonathan was
determined to pursue and actualise his administration’s transformation
agenda in spite of the tendency of the opposition to feed the
public with wrong information.
Anyim said this in an address he sent to the opening of a
one-day workshop on Effective Information Management and Public Communication
as a Key Component of the Transformation Agenda.
The workshop was organised for Special Assistants on Media and
Directors of information of Federal Government ministries, departments and
agencies by the office of the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication,
Dr. Doyin Okupe, in Abuja.
The address was read on behalf of the SGF by his Special
Assistant, Mr. Ferdinand Agwu.
Anyim asked those entrusted with the responsibility of
managing information for government to rise to the challenge of
dispelling misinformation from the public.
He said, “President Jonathan’s commitment to transforming
this country remains unshaken despite the growing tendency of the opposition to
misinform the public. It is your responsibility to stem this unwholesome trend.
Make deliberate efforts to debunk the misinformation and campaigns of calumny
against the government.
“You can achieve this in a coordinated and professional manner
that leaves no one in doubt that this administration is living up to the
promise it made to the people when it was inaugurated on May 29, 2011.”
But the nation’s main opposition parties – the Action Congress
of Nigeria and Congress for Progressive Change – said the
accusation was a grand deception to deal in conjectures.
National Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Alhaji Lai
Mohammed, said it was inconceivable for the Federal
Government to expect the opposition to be singing its praises.
Mohammed, in a telephone interview with one of our
correspondents, noted that the government which he described as
incompetent, was only being emotional.
He said, “Why would the opposition be expected to be the
one to blow the trumpet of the Federal Government. Don’t they have people who
are entrusted with that responsibility?
“Let them not be emotional; let them come out and say what we
have said that is not true. I think they have a problem with their image and I
think it is because of their incompetence.”
His CPC counterpart, Rotimi Fasakin, said the
claim by Anyim was only a guess meant to deceive Nigerians.
He said that the Jonathan administration had not achieved
anything worthy of note apart from increasing the rate of corruption in
the country.
Fasakin stated that government officials must not
lose sight of the fact that Nigerians knew the truth about their
performance.
He said, “In two years after his purported election, what
is the achievement that is worthy of note, aside from the humongous corruptive
tendency associated with his regime. The folks around the regime are
under self-delusion to think Nigerians do not know the truth. The preponderant
view of the Nigerian people is never again.
“Never again shall they allow such puerile campaign slogan of
‘goodluck for me, goodluck for you, goodluck for everybody’ to hoodwink them.
“They are determined not to vote for ethno-religious
sentimentality anymore. They are determined to remove cluelessness. That is the
irreducible minimum from Nigerians going forward.”
Meanwhile, a former senatorial candidate for the Action Congress
of Nigeria, Dr. Ben Nwoye, has said events in the nation
since Jonathan assumed office “show that he has no clear agenda for the
country.”
Nwoye spoke shortly after the Enugu State congress of the party
where Barth Ugwoke emerged as the state chairman of the ACN and
Uche Ogbu , secretary.
Nwoye said on Tuesday that many members of the
Peoples Democratic Party, including those in the Senate and House
of Representatives, would defect to the All Progressives Congress once
the party was registered.
Source: Punch
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