The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the coming presidential election, Bola Tinubu, has mockingly called the opposition party “poverty development party”.
Tinubu, who spoke while unveiling Tinubu/Shettima door-to-door campaign group in Nigeria, wondered why the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) still exists.
He urged his members not to “hurl abuses and insults at our rivals’ party,” saying that APC is “smarter; brilliant; courageous, and not like them (PDP).
The former two-time Governor of Lagos State dismissed the Peoples Democratic Party that “they spent 16 years and forgot that there is a railway infrastructure that can do haulage, human carriage, animal husbandry and food carriage across the length and breadth of the country.”
He added, “They (PDP) got there and turned it into an incubator. I wonder why they still exist as a party. These are people still fighting for the leadership of their party, looking for the direction of the compass. We are not equal at all; we are smarter. We know the road; let them follow.
Tinubu advised his supporters not to “worry about PDP – poverty development party. Today, let’s lower the temperature. It’s not the time to campaign yet. They will hear a lot from us.
“We are the party of progressive ideas. We want a good education for our children, a good development for Nigeria, prosperity for this country, agricultural and agro-allied projects to be embarked upon.”
Tinubu is confident that his party has a solution to Nigeria’s problem and plans to resolve the challenges.
He said, “We have the confidence that we have what it takes. We have the courage, determination, perseverance and foresight to identify the problems of Nigeria and tackle them headlong and make a solution out of them for the prosperity of your children. We will guarantee tomorrow jobs for your grandchildren and the progress of tomorrow.
“All we are doing is strategizing, calculating and organizing ourselves to confront the challenge before us.”
The vice-presidential flagbearer, Kashim Shettima, who spoke at the venue, assured that Tinubu’s presidency would turn Nigeria into an industrialized nation.
Shettima said, “We are on the threshold of making history. The global economy is tilting towards recession because the world has moved from the agricultural age to the industrial age.
“We have moved from the industrial age to the knowledge-driven age. People are now talking of big data, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology and open biotechnology.
“Who among the presidential candidates we have here in this country has the skill set, the intellect, the capacity to move this nation greater than Asiwaju Bola Tinubu?”
PDP lost power to the APC in 2015 after ruling Nigeria for 16 years in the election between Muhammadu Buhari and Goodluck Jonathan.
PDP is embroiled in crisis as members want the national chairman, Iyorchia Ayu, to resign to allow a southerner since the presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, is a northerner.
Fact-check on Tinubu’s claims:
Tinubu said, “they spent 16 years and forgot that there is a railway infrastructure that can do haulage, human carriage, animal husbandry and food carriage across the length and breadth of the country.”
Mr Tinubu’s claim is false. The conceptualization of the railway infrastructure started under Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
In October 2006, Obasanjo said, “no nation has achieved holistic development without a coherent integrated, efficient and reliable transportation system” while setting out his vision for revitalizing Nigeria’s 3500km rail network.
The plan was to fund it with a soft loan from China, and the project was also awarded to China Civil Engineering and Constructed Co (CCECC) for $8.3bn.
However, the project was discontinued due to a lack of funds until Mr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan came into office when in 2011, through counterpart funding with the Chinese construction firm, rejuvenated the projects at the rate of $874 million.
Under the Peoples Democratic Party, the party handed over a $550 billion economy. It was classed as one of the largest economies in the world, but after eight years of the APC, Nigeria is now the Poverty Capital of the world.
Nigerian currency under PDP was $1 to N198, and under the APC, the naira has continued to lose value, $1 now over N600.
In 2015, the pump price of petroleum was N87 per litre and is currently pegged at 179.39 under Mr Muhammadu Buhari, an APC President.
In 2015, the unemployment rate was 7.3% during Mr Jonathan’s administration, but according to Statista’s report forecasting, the unemployment rate in Nigeria is pegged at 33%.
