PDP to FG, heed Bill Gates advice

Instead of diverting public attention with its usual deceit and propaganda, the APC government should gear up and deliver on its hundreds of unfulfilled campaign promises, the PDP Caucus in the House of Representatives has said.



In a statement issued by the House Minority Leader, Honourable Leo Ogor, the PDP House caucus warned that the APC’s uncharitable use of the Chibok’s girls’ abduction during the 2015 political campaigns along with its current propaganda efforts cannot help APC win re-election in 2019.



“Over and over, it has been proven that hands down, the current APC government in Nigeria beats all preceding administration, including the colonial ones, in the sinister art of deceitful lies and propaganda.



“With fiendish mercilessness, APC’s 2015 campaign milked the unfortunate abduction of Chibok girls for every available ounce of propaganda and disinformation against the preceding administration; its campaign rhetoric and official hoopla from the lying minister had included freeing of the Chibok girl and achieving total defeat of Boko Haram insurgents.





“Today, the APC government nurses palpable fear over any scrutiny of its errors in Dapchi or its unusual generosity towards Boko Haram which it promised to defeat but now almost sees as a partner with which to share deep and befuddling confidence,” the House caucus stated.



Emphasizing the need for government to seriously heed American billionaire, Bill Gates’ advice by making life more meaningful for citizens who have waited endlessly to see the actualization of APC’s campaign promises, the caucus asserted that life has become more unbearable for even millions of those who voted for APC.



“Although the APC government is known not to be a listening one, last Thursday, the Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Mr. Bill Gates emphatically stated that the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan was not reflective of the people’s needs.



“It is an open secret that under APC, Nigerians have fared worse on the misery index; those who were rich before are no longer investing, the poor are becoming poorer while almost thirty million Nigerians are either unemployed or underemployed.



“According to Bill Gates, the APC government’s concentration on physical infrastructure (and fat contracts) to the detriment of human capital development exposes the undesirable inadequacies in the health and education sectors.



“Noting the unmatched economic potentials of the Nigerian people who have suffered immensely under the merciless pummeling of APC government’s irresponsive policies that has hampered investment and people’s well-being, Gates had more to say about the negative changes under APC:





“Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world to give birth, with the fourth worst maternal mortality rate in the world ahead of only Sierra Leone, Central African Republic and Chad; one in three Nigerian children is chronically malnourished.



“In upper middle-income countries, the average life expectancy is 75 years, in lower middle-income countries, it’s 68; in low-income countries, it’s 62. In Nigeria, it is lower still, just 53 years.



“The Nigerian government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan identifies investing in the people as one of three strategic objectives. But the execution priorities don’t fully reflect people’s needs, prioritizing physical capital over human capital.

“People without roads, ports and factories can’t flourish. And roads, ports and factories without skilled workers to build and manage them can’t sustain an economy,” Gates had said.





Expressing concern that the current administration has not been able to adequately build on some of the laudable health, educational and other PDP initiatives, the PDP House caucus urged government to take its advice in good faith instead of taking it as another chance for its propaganda machinery to get busy once again.



“Deceitful lies under a minister who is the grand guru of lying methodologies and ceaseless propaganda along with endless blame shifting cannot and will not help the APC government and Nigeria; it is time for this government to have a sober reflection on Bill Gates’ non-partisan observations and change its ways.



“Under APC, all available statistics indicate poor level of investment and job creation while countless negative attributes of underdevelopment including dilapidated classrooms, poorly-equipped laboratories, uninspired manpower, inappropriately funded tertiary institutions, infant and maternal mortality, crime and insecurity have all ballooned.



“In the interest of coming generations, we plead with this government to desist from the endless futile promises of “We will, we will, we will” which has foisted three years of economic pain and existential anguish on the people.



“It is only by building on the National Health Insurance Scheme which it inherited from the PDP and by making sound judgments in the education and other sectors that impact directly on the people’s well-being that Nigerians can believe that this government is changing for the better,” the PDP House caucus stated.