• Dismisses PDP petition to UN
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
With a second term victory in its kitty, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said its administration will now focus more on reshaping the economy and fulfilling most of the promises the party made to Nigerians.
The party also dismissed the aspersions allegedly cast on the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari by Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), describing the petition to the United Nations as misplaced and of no effect.
APC said as far as Nigeria is concerned, the only authority that binds every citizen is the constitution.
The Director General of the APC Campaign Council, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, who addressed a press conference to thank Nigerians for their support for the party, said President Buhari has assured Nigerians in his acceptance speech that he would work to alleviate their sufferings under the next level agenda.
According to Amaechi, “The president has stated that not only will he run an inclusive government but that he has also realised that Nigerians have suffered enough and that it is time to rescue Nigeria.”
When asked if APC can now accept responsibility for the state of things in the country, Amaechi said: “I think we should leave the past, whether PDP did well or not, we now have another four years to prove that we are better than them. We have to prove them wrong by doing better.
“The cardinal point that the president has continuously focused on is the fight against corruption and the need not just to rehabilitate the economy but also to make it grow because of the challenge we faced during PDP reign in 2015.”
The Minister of Transportation also said the economy would not grow “if we don’t focus on security and ensuring that lives and property are secure all over the country. We are basically saying that none of those cardinal objectives will be forgotten. Good enough, the president has said he would run an inclusive government.”
However, Amaechi said the fact that APC would take responsibility for policies aimed at reshaping the economy of the country does not mean that Nigerians will no longer refer to what happened in the past.
For instance, he said the President Goodluck Jonathan administration inherited $68 billion from President Olusegun Obasanjo but left a paltry sum of $2.5 billion for the President Buhari-led administration in 2015.
Amaechi also responded to the statement credited to the PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, that there may be no elections in 2023 based the way things are going, noting that neither the PDP chairman cannot decree if there will be polls in 2023 or not.
Speaking on the outcome of presidential election, the transportation minister said APC is satisfied with the votes it got at the presidential poll, especially those Buhari secured from areas like the Southeast zone.
“We are humbled by the number of people that turned out not just for the election but the huge crowd that turned out during our campaign. The different character we have in this election is that the support in the South increased and tripled against what we had in 2015, “indicating the acceptability of President Buhari across all parts of Nigeria.”
