APC says Nigeria will pay heavily for Jonathan’s endorsement as sole candidate

The All Progressives’ Congress, APC, has described as mockery of democracy, the endorsement of President Goodluck Jonathan as the sole candidate of the PDP for the next year’s presidential election, to the exclusion of all other candidates. It strongly argued that the said endorsement was a deal signed by the governors.
The party, in a statement issued in Lagos on Wednesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, alleged that the endorsement was to the detriment of Nigerians, considering the obvious deals that were struck to make President Jonathan the sole PDP candidate.
According to the statement, the parody of democracy that the endorsement represents has exposed the shameless hypocrisy of the PDP, which is ever so eager to accuse other parties of lacking in internal democracy.
Part of the statement reads, “Obviously, those fellows in the PDP have never heard of the saying that those who must come to equity must come with clean hands. PDP, where is your own internal democracy now that you have turned your party into a fiefdom controlled by one and only one person only?
“While endorsements are part and parcel of democracy, they are never done to the exclusion of other candidates. This is simply not democratic. When then candidate Barrack Obama was endorsed by his party’s bigwigs to contest the US Presidency, the party never excluded Hillary Clinton from its primaries. That’s how it is done.”
APC alleged that the price being paid for Jonathan’s endorsement by Nigeria is simply too heavy, considering that the PDP Governors who spearheaded the endorsement have now secured perpetual immunity from prosecution by anti-graft bodies, including the EFCC and the ICPC; the automatic tickets for all first-term PDP Governors, whether or not they have performed, the automatic tickets for all PDP Governors running for the Senate, as well as the free ride back to the Upper Chamber for Senate President David Mark.
In the words of the party, “It is now an Open Sesame for the PDP Governors, who have no prying anti-corruption agencies watching over their shoulders. They can now simply see the commonwealth as an extension of their deep pockets. The endorsement is also a vote of approval for the proceeds of corruption that have been powering the noisy and outrageous Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria.”
It strongly accused President Jonathan of desecrating Nigeria’s democracy as a result of his desperation for re-election, adding that, “it is a cruel irony that a man who has benefited, more than anyone else, from this democracy has been the one who has been doing everything possible to undermine it.”
The main opposition party alleged that President Jonathan has also abandoned domestic issues while seeking international relevance, in a clear negation of the aphorism that charity begins at home.
“This President has basically abandoned governance. Unprecedented corruption is mounting, insecurity stalks the land and Nigerians grope in darkness as power generation has plummeted. This President has yet to tell Nigerians the full involvement of his government in the 9.3 million dollars that was illegally ferried to South Africa on a private jet. This President has yet to tell Nigerians why he has continued to hobnob with an alleged sponsor of Boko Haram, who is supposed to be under a probe by his Administration. Yet, he is eager to attend meetings with serious-minded leaders who have done well for their own people.
APC, in the statement, advised President Jonathan that it is only when you have achieved success domestically that you can parade yourself internationally, asserting that, “you cannot look good abroad if you look ugly at home.”