Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole stated that the 16 years of reign of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has not done Nigerians any good but has divided Nigerians along ethnic and religious lines weaken the foundation of our unity.
The governor stated this while speaking to Newsmen shortly after attending the 22nd convocation ceremony and the 50th anniversary of the Auchi Polytechnic, Auchi. He said the only solution to the nation’s problems was for Nigerians to vote for change come 2015, asserting that the PDP led Federal Government has shown incompetence in fixing the problems despite their 16 years reign so far in the country.
The Governor advised the PDP to ask the following pertinent questions; why they have not fixed power, why they have not fixed education, why they have not fixed the health sector, why they have not fixed the roads, why they have dashed the expectation of the youths and they have polluted the political atmosphere.
“They are buffeting us with primordial sentiments in place of issues of development and the country is weaker today than it was before. We need people who fought to keep Nigeria together to come back and re-fix what PDP has broken and it is all about all of us today. Nigerians should vote for change, even PDP needs change, you can see; the internal contradictions within the PDP is like a weak fabric; the more you patch it, the more it gets torn and after 16 years, even PDP will agree that they haven’t delivered on the promises of democracy” he said.
He continued, “Look at the newspapers, they have issues today because the cost of production is going up because of escalating cost of procuring diesel because you are still not able to print with power inspite of all the reforms and deforms of the power sector. Look at the typical newspaper today, you don’t find products adverts what you find is obituary, birthdays, endless congratulatory messages.
“The Private sector is dead and that is why you are not getting adverts for products and you are not going to be able to create jobs if you don’t revive the private sector and as you can see even though between 1999 till date, the oil sector has performed better than it was in the previous ten years”.
“And there is no question that our people are living in denial, in the midst of plenty but I am even more worried about the deliberate efforts to weaken unity in order to create all kinds of divide. All of a sudden, the Nigerian Army that is reputed all over the world to have fought and to be helping to secure neighbouring countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Sudan and others when they witnessed internal crisis, now it is our turn to look inwards and we are told that our soldiers are running, what has gone wrong?
“What has changed that we are no longer the giant? That we can’t even get arms to buy in official markets, we have to go underground? Are we under sanctions by who and why? Why are we not earning respect, why are we not trusted? So for me, even the PDP will recognise that they need time to go and rest so that they can ask themselves some soul searching; that how come that in 16 years we left the country weaker than we met it.
“Then the change forces which I belong to will then learn from their own failure and of course with the logic of change, re-order our national priorities, evolve a more judicious application to our national resource and lay emphasis on production rather than importation and give the Nigerian young people the basis of hope and a basis to remain loyal to the Nigerian state”.
