•Opposion: stop your dance of shame
•ACN downplaying our achievement, says govt
The Kwara State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday disagreed over the report by the ruling party that 2,500 members of the opposition had defected to the state PDP.
ACN chieftain, Mohammed Dele Belgore (SAN), described as a show of shame and admission of failure the PDP’s and its government’s claims that the ACN members defected because “Belgore failed to give them employment”.
Belgore, who has denied the defection story, asked whether it was the duty of the opposition to provide jobs for the people, or the government which controls the machinery of the state and is charged with welfare of the citizens. The government and the ruling PDP have repeatedly taunted the opposition on the defection, which the ACN insisted was another lie from the PDP and its government.
Belgore, in a statement by his media aide, Rafiu Ajakaye, said: “Our initial reaction is that nothing, however shameful and debasing, is beyond a government now notorious for its lies and chicanery and whose every claim now faces integrity test even from little kids.”
But Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed urged the state ACN to come up with viable alternatives to its policies instead of downplaying his administration’s achievements.
In a statement in Ilorin, the state capital, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Communications Dr Muideen Akorede said: “For once, Belgore should suspend politicking and acknowledge the Ahmed administration’s triumphs, which are obvious to all but the embattled opposition.
“These achievements include rural/urban road construction and rehabilitation, supply of laboratory equipment to schools, rehabilitation of basic and senior secondary school classrooms, rural and urban electrification, the remodelling of five general hospitals, provision of 220 boreholes and rehabilitation work on 13 waterworks, the on-going construction of a first-class International Vocational Centre and Engineering Complex at KWASU among others.
“These strides are obvious to all but the ACN is daily haemorrhaging disillusioned members, who are then trooping en masse to the high-performing PDP.”
Belgore said the celebrations of the alleged defection raised questions about the seriousness, competence and the thought of the initiators of such self-defeating claims.
The statement reads: “We have been watching with amusement how the Kwara State Government, which claims to be performing and is popular, is wasting public funds in celebrating in the newspapers and on television the sponsored and contrived defection of some fictitious members of the opposition party.
“They even went to the ridiculous extent of sponsoring a statement that Belgore (SAN) promised the defectors employment but has reneged on that promise and that was the reason for their defection…
“Indeed, the celebration of the so-called defection is a pitiable show by the PDP-led government and it raises a number of questions. If the so-called defectors’ grouse is that they remain unemployed, contrary to a promise that had been made to them, how and from where do such unemployed people get funds to sponsor the so-called defection ceremony and the various television and newspaper coverage it has received?
“Does this not suggest that they were sponsored? Certainly, the sponsorship would not have come from the party that they were defecting from. Whose responsibility is it – government or the opposition – to create jobs? Is it not only a shameless government that would be celebrating its own failure by saying someone else should have done what it is constitutionally charged to do?
“If the opposition does not exist in Kwara, as the government has repeatedly stated over the years, where did the so-called defectors, numbering 2,500 from one single local council, come from?
“Assuming even that there was in fact a real decampment, now that unemployment has been cited as the reason for it, what is the government doing to address that?
“Is the government going to create or offer jobs to the alleged 2,500 unemployed defectors or improve their lot in any meaningful and sustainable way beyond the hand-outs it has given to them to create the false media show of the decampment?
“The truth of the matter is that the PDP-led government in Kwara State has failed miserably and it continues to exhibit its failure and incompetence in embarrassing ways and this is one of such ways. Beyond the usual window-dressings and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signings with bogus entities like the so-called Vasolar Consortium about which nothing verifiable exists other than media publications from the MOU signing ceremony with KWSG, it has no meaningful achievement on record to date.
“Rather, it is fond of making false claims on its performance, from blatantly lying that it has constructed over 600 kilometres of road in the state, the embarrassing falsehood/contradictory statements on the so-called Shonga award, to claims that it has employed thousands of youths and is sharing prosperity even when youth restiveness, armed robbery, rampant killings have hit a record high in the state while poverty now walks on all four in the state so much that people are queuing in front of the Government House to beg for foods and shelter!
“Meanwhile, there are numerous allegations of financial scandals by the past and current PDP-led government being (or are yet to be) investigated; the list continues to grow by the day. The government should keep itself busy in improving the lives of the people and in running an open and clean government. It should stop chasing shadows and wasting public funds by bringing itself into further ridicule and odium by self-defeating and embarrassing media displays.”
