The All Progressives Congress (APC), on Tuesday, announced dates for its congresses and national convention, as the party disclosed that, its ward congress would hold on April 5; local government Congress, April 12; state congress, April 23; while its national convention would hold on May 24. The party made the disclosure via a communique issued by the Interim National Executive Committee of the party after its ninth meeting in Abuja. The communique was signed by the APC Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, where the party urged Nigerians to keep faith with the party. The party, in its communique, said that, “we urge our compatriots not to despair or give up hope, because salvation is in the horizon. The APC today embodies the hopes and aspirations of our long-suffering people. We have no doubt that this country can and will work again, and we are up to the task of restoring hope to our beleaguered people.” The NEC of the party also commiserated with the families of the people who died during last Saturday’s Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) recruitment exercise, as the party, in its communique, extended its sympathy and prayers to those who were injured in the stampede and wished them speedy recovery. According to the party, “The needless deaths of our youth, which resulted from a combination of exploitation, corruption, greed and incompetence of the relevant authorities, represent a needless violation of their right to life and dignity. Out of sheer greed, N1,000 each was collected from the over 770,000 unemployed applicants shortlisted. “The Goodluck Jonathan-led Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, therefore, fleeced unemployed youth and their parents of Seven hundred and seventy six million naira (N770 million) using a consultant as conduit. “Even then, the available vacancies of about 4,500 have already been filled through the back door by over 3,000 candidates of the PDP Apparatchik and government officials.” While accusing the present administration of corruption, the party, in its communique, maintained that, “the pervasive corruption and incompetence that have become the hallmarks of the Jonathan administration paved the way for this unprecedented greed in which hapless job seekers were extorted by the same government that has failed to provide jobs for them. “Yet, this government has no social security or any form of safety net for the vulnerable army of the unemployed. It should be made clear that this government encourages and baby sits corruption stealing not only from the pension fund of Nigerian citizens, but also from the unemployed and from our collective patrimony, the NNPC. “That is why we are calling for a criminal investigation to unravel the circumstances that led to the deaths of those innocent Nigerians, to find out who authorised the fleecing of job seekers by a government agency, what happened to the money realised from the heist and why the relevant officials did not ensure a better arrangement that could have saved precious lives. “The job stampede deaths constitute the latest in a series of events that have turned Nigeria into a massive killing field in recent times. The orgy of killings in the past few weeks have left hundreds dead and many more maimed in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Kaduna, Katsina and Plateau, just to mention a few. Never in the peace time history of our dear country has there been such a high number of needless deaths. The party, in its communique, also accused President Jonathan of “gallivanting around the country, addressing political rallies when he should be commiserating with families of the dead in the affected states, especially Yobe where innocent children were massacred by a cowardly band of terrorists, and Katsina which he visited a few hours after hundreds of people were killed.” To this end, the party claimed that, “it has come to our notice that, in pursuant of the Presidency’s stance to label anyone who offers it any advice on how to curtail the terrorists attack and boost the morale of our gallant troops, the imposition of a total state of emergency is being considered for Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states, which is a smokescreen to remove the democratically-elected governors of these APC states.”
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 04:04:56 +0000
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