The federal government says the call by governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for President Bola Tinubu to throw in the towel is a distraction.
The governors of the opposition party urged the administration, led by the All Progressives Congress (APC), to give up on the nation’s economic woes on Saturday if it was unable to find a solution.
According to the PDP Governors’ Forum, the country’s hardship is getting intolerable.
But in a statement on Sunday by Rabiu Ibrahim, his special adviser, Mohammed Idris, minister of information, said the call by the opposition governors “is nothing but an attempt at distraction by people who should instead be busy supporting the President’s efforts at bringing economic relief to the Nigerian people”.
The minister added that those who could not bring transformational change when they had a lengthy chance to should not seek to interrupt or distract those who are working to do so.
“It is our considered view that the PDP and its Governors should not be seeking, through the back door of intimidation, what they have consistently failed to achieve by democratic means, since 2015,” the statement reads.
The minister said since it came into power, the new administration has recorded several accomplishment, including extending financial support to all the state governments and clearing several liabilities left behind by the PDP government.
“Major oil sector reforms that the PDP touted for years but could not deliver, passage of the PIB, new refineries, as well as the revamp of existing ones, and so on, are the very real and continuing legacies of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC),” the minister said.
“All of these have been accomplished without access to the oil windfall that the PDP government enjoyed for much of the time that it was in power, and also against the backdrop of the most devastating global shock since the Second World War: the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We must continue to state these facts so Nigerians will know where we are coming from, and appreciate what is being done in its full context.”
The minister said Tinubu is not and will never be overwhelmed by the current challenges the country is facing, adding that he will not abdicate his responsibilities.
“He will courageously continue to wrestle with the challenges and surmount them, laying a durable foundation for the new Nigeria that is emerging,“ he said.
“He has also never shied away from acknowledging the pain of ongoing reforms, and has seized every opportunity to assure Nigerians that inside the pain of the reforms lie the seeds of lasting prosperity and national development.
“To the PDP Governors, let us reiterate: This is not the time for distraction. It is time instead for the rolling up of sleeves, to support and complement the hard work of the President and his administration.”
