National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, yesterday, declared the goodwill the party enjoyed among Nigerians was dwindling. Tinubu stated this when he met with members of the APC National Working Committee (NWC) at the party’s secretariat in Abuja on the way to reconcile aggrieved members of the party. That was as the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prince Uche Secondus, also yesterday called on Nigerians to get ready to vote out the APC-led Federal Government in the 2019 general elections.
Secondus, who described the present administration as a “government of confusion,” spoke in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital during the sixth year anniversary celebration of Governor Seriake Dickson’s government. Tinubu, who told journalists that he was at the APC secretariat to consult the party’s executive on the assignment given to him by President Muhammadu Buhari, admitted that governing Nigeria was a difficult task. His words: “We worked hard to victory. We have never governed before, but we won the confidence of Nigerians to govern.
We have a desire to really serve the country to change and reform the country. It is not easy to have those changes implemented like instant coffee. We have to grow it. We have to face challenges. “I sympathize with us and wish we equally look at ourselves since we won the elections, the expectation was very high and the goodwill was extremely high, but where are we today?”
Explaining why the government and the party seemed not to have made much impact, he said: “The challenges faced by the government and the president are enormous. It is only because people are not paying attention to the various statistics that are available. We have to push that, but I won’t touch that yet. “The challenges of reform and re-engineering of the financesof thiscountry, stopping corruption and challenging the status quo is there, it doesn’t go away over night.”
On the reconciliation process, he said: “l came for consultation since you are aware of the assignment given to me and I am all ears to listen to various challenges we have. We have worked hard after the last convention of the party, congresses were held from various wards to elect repre-sentatives at the state, local government and national levels.”
The APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, who pledged the cooperation of the APC NWC in the reconciliation move, said: “I welcome you (Tinubu) here. There is no question at all that there are major issues in the National Assembly, Kano, Kogi and Benue states, but we will make your assignment a successful one.”
But, Secondus, who called for the rejection of the ruling party in the next elections, berated the APC for bringing hunger and poverty to Nigerians. He said:
“I call on all prominent men to come back and rescue our nation from hunger and frustration that we are experiencing today. This broom has brought us poverty, hunger and killings. Never again shall we witness killings and poverty.”