Tukur’s prediction on President’s rule, an empty boast –APC

The All Progressives Congress has described a statement credited to the National Chairman of the People Democratic Party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, to the effect that President Goodluck Jonathan will rule till 2019 as an empty boast.

The party said only Nigerians would decide whether or not President Jonathan would rule beyond 2015.

Tukur was quoted as saying Jonathan would rule until 2019.

APC in a statement signed by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed on Wednesday, advised Tukur to learn from his predecessors.

The opposition party said Tukur’s statement was nothing but an empty boast aimed at ingratiating himself to the President.

The party also asked the PDP chairman to step down from his post to pave way for the younger generation because it was time for Nigerian youths to take over the reins of power.

The party reminded Tukur that one of his predecessors once boasted that the PDP would rule for 60 years, only for him to leave office in disgrace shortly thereafter.

The statement read in part, “There is nothing on ground to justify Tukur’s empty boast beyond the PDP’s rigging machine, which is again being oiled in readiness for 2015, going by the barefaced vote stealing and unbridled brigandage that the party exhibited in the recent bye election in Delta Central Senatorial District.

“The PDP, which has presided over the affairs of Nigeria for the past 14 years, has only succeeded in pushing more people into poverty, with 112 million people now living below the poverty line and millions of children out of school.”

The statement also said no sector had been spared the effects of the cluelessness and visionlessness of the PDP and its leaders.

APC observed that it was interesting that Tukur said the future belonged to the youths and that the era of gerontocracy was gone.

The statement added, “The last time we checked, a 78-year-old man does not exactly belong to the generation of youths, even if he continues to hold away at the top echelon of the ruling party. The sincerity of that statement is therefore in doubt.

“As for the PDP Chairman’s advice to the youth to start preparing to take over the mantle of leadership, the question to ask is whether or not the undergraduates in the nation’s public universities, who have been marooned at home for over four months now because the PDP-led Federal Government repudiated the agreement it signed with Academic Staff Union of Universities, are not part of the leaders of tomorrow?”

It said if the PDP national chairman believed that the future belonged to the youths, he should prevail on the PDP-led Federal Government to meet its obligations to ASUU.