By Olawale Lamina
“The governors elected on the platform of the PDP are in no position to advice President Bola Tinubu on governance or rate his performance in office because none of them has done anything worthwhile with the improved revenue they had been getting since Tinubu assumed office in the last one year….”
By Olawale Lamina
The Tinubu Media Group,TMSG, has pilloried the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP governors for their hypocrisy, describing them as “chichidodos, a mythical bird that hates excreta but feed on worms that live in faeces.”
The group’s reaction on Sunday in Abuja was sequel to the (opposition party) governors’ communique issued in Enugu on the state of the nation under the Tinubu administration.
The TMSG, in a statement signed by its Chairman Emeka Nwankpa and the Secretary, Dapo Okubanjo, noted that it found the PDP governors’ statement curious, alleging it was an “irony that, the PDP governors who had feasted on the enormous allocations being generated by the Tinubu administration have turned to accuse the same government of non-performance.
,It further described the governors comments as far from being sincere and smacked of “being arrogantly sanctimonious.”
Rather, the group noted that those it dubbed as non-performing governors “like those of the PDP are a burden on the country.”
On their capacity to assess the Tinubu-led administration, the STMG said: “The governors elected on the platform of the PDP are in no position to advice President Bola Tinubu on governance or rate his performance in office because none of them has done anything worthwhile with the improved revenue they had been getting since Tinubu assumed office in the last one year.
“Going through the communique issued by PDP governors on sundry national issues at the end of their meeting in Enugu, we were not surprised that they took pot shots at President Bola Tinubu who has over the years been the nemesis of their party even before his assumption of office.
“But we find it shameful that state governors, with little or no real performance to their names in spite of a quantum leap in public funds allocated to them in over one year, are pointing fingers of blame at the President.
“We consider this as an act of hypocrisy, but we also recognize that they have to play the politics of opposition, which in Nigeria denotes abuse or canvassing false narratives.
“Just like President Tinubu, we acknowledge that the twin policies of fuel subsidy removal and unification of multiple exchange rates as well as high cost of living globally have exacerbated the high cost of living in the country but, it has also led to improved allocations from the federation account to all tiers of government which these governors enjoy.
“Our question for this group of governors is,what have they been doing with the public funds at their disposal to the extent that they themselves have had to raise posers on the ability of sub nationals to pay the new minimum wage?”
The TMSG added that the federal government had equally been extending support to the states, regardless of party affiliations, while expressing disappointment that despite the largesse being doled out to them, there were no massive infrastructure projects in many of the states to justify the allocation being enjoyed by the group of governors.
“And lest we forget, some of these governors are presiding over oil-producing states which incidentally have the highest number of people living in multidimensional poverty even after years of receiving enormous allocations tied to resources.
“Yet these are governors who chose to “express dismay at the management of the economy” rather than sit down and engage in a sincere peer review mechanism that will enhance performance in their respective states,” the group observed
TMSG also wondered what the PDP governors meant by the good old days of the former ruling party.
“We found it laughable that members of a party that presided over multiple oil boom eras with little to show for it could engage in a revisionist ploy to hoodwink gullible Nigerians.
“This is a political party which plundered Nigeria’s hard-earned resources and squandered its national patrimony for a period of 16 years and ring-fenced hundreds of state-owned companies and investments through an opaque privatization process.
“It is easy for PDP governors to play the populist card by bringing up price of food items and the pump price of fuel but Nigerians have not forgotten the massive diversion of oil revenue into private foreign bank accounts..”
The pro democracy group also decried what it called as deliberate neglect of public infrastructure in the face of huge revenue earnings.
The group recalled what Information Minister, Mohammed Idris told PDP governors sometime in February this year ,while enumerating the many achievements of President Bola Tinubu.
‘The TMSG then quoted the minister as saying that, “The President and his administration recognise the unfinished business of revamping our national economy kickstarted by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.”
It also quoted the minister as saying that, the government had “achieved breakthrough in such programmes that focused on large-scale infrastructure, social welfare, prioritizing the equipping of, and welfare of the military and security agencies. So also is the reclaiming of Nigeria’s strategic place in the comity of nations.’’
He added that Boko Haram and its affiliates, which were on the ascendancy in 2014/2015, have since been decimated, and similar bold gains are now being made with bandits and other criminals.’
“If a 16-year period marked by those harsh realities were the good old days the PDP governors were referencing, then our message to them is, Never again,” the pro-Tinubu group added.
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