The Federal Government has accused opposition parties of deliberately misinforming Nigerians about the performance of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Anyim Pius Anyim, who made the allegation on Tuesday, however said Jonathan was determined to pursue and actualise his administration’s transformation agenda in spite of the tendency of the opposition to feed the public with wrong information.
Anyim said this in an address he sent to the opening of a one-day workshop on Effective Information Management and Public Communication as a Key Component of the Transformation Agenda.
The workshop was organised for Special Assistants on Media and Directors of information of Federal Government ministries, departments and agencies by the office of the Senior Special Assistant on Public Communication, Dr. Doyin Okupe, in Abuja.
The address was read on behalf of the SGF by his Special Assistant, Mr. Ferdinand Agwu.
Anyim asked those entrusted with the responsibility of managing information for government to rise to the challenge of dispelling misinformation from the public.
He said, “President Jonathan’s commitment to transforming this country remains unshaken despite the growing tendency of the opposition to misinform the public. It is your responsibility to stem this unwholesome trend. Make deliberate efforts to debunk the misinformation and campaigns of calumny against the government.
“You can achieve this in a coordinated and professional manner that leaves no one in doubt that this administration is living up to the promise it made to the people when it was inaugurated on May 29, 2011.”
But the nation’s main opposition parties – the Action Congress of Nigeria and Congress for Progressive Change – said the accusation was a grand deception to deal in conjectures.
National Publicity Secretary of the ACN, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it was inconceivable for the Federal Government to expect the opposition to be singing its praises.
Mohammed, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents, noted that the government which he described as incompetent, was only being emotional.
He said, “Why would the opposition be expected to be the one to blow the trumpet of the Federal Government. Don’t they have people who are entrusted with that responsibility?
“Let them not be emotional; let them come out and say what we have said that is not true. I think they have a problem with their image and I think it is because of their incompetence.”
His CPC counterpart, Rotimi Fasakin, said the claim by Anyim was only a guess meant to deceive Nigerians.
He said that the Jonathan administration had not achieved anything worthy of note apart from increasing the rate of corruption in the country.
Fasakin stated that government officials must not lose sight of the fact that Nigerians knew the truth about their performance.
He said, “In two years after his purported election, what is the achievement that is worthy of note, aside from the humongous corruptive tendency associated with his regime. The folks around the regime are under self-delusion to think Nigerians do not know the truth. The preponderant view of the Nigerian people is never again.
“Never again shall they allow such puerile campaign slogan of ‘goodluck for me, goodluck for you, goodluck for everybody’ to hoodwink them.
“They are determined not to vote for ethno-religious sentimentality anymore. They are determined to remove cluelessness. That is the irreducible minimum from Nigerians going forward.”
Meanwhile, a former senatorial candidate for the Action Congress of Nigeria, Dr. Ben Nwoye, has said events in the nation since Jonathan assumed office “show that he has no clear agenda for the country.”
Nwoye spoke shortly after the Enugu State congress of the party where Barth Ugwoke emerged as the state chairman of the ACN and Uche Ogbu , secretary.
Nwoye said on Tuesday that many members of the Peoples Democratic Party, including those in the Senate and House of Representatives, would defect to the All Progressives Congress once the party was registered.
Punch Nigeria
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