The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) this afternoon tore into shreds this year’s Christmas Message by President Goodluck Jonathan, dismissing it as “a hollow ritual.”

The opposition party in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin (Engr.), lamented that Nigerians stoically waded “through a very horrendous year, largely made so by the deliberate pauperization policy of the PDP-led ruling Federal government. A year that started with the crude and perilous forty-nine percent increase of petrol pump price by a very cruel and insensitive regime, eventually unveiled the most bizarre incongruence in national life in the over five decades’ existence of the Nigerian State!”

Conitinuing, the statement entitled “The Season’s message from the Presidency: A Hollow Ritual!” said: “President Goodluck Jonathan, in his season’s message to Nigerians, said inter-alia: ‘No one should doubt that we have the political will and determination to deliver on our promise of positive changes in the living conditions of our people in the shortest possible time….. It is my hope and expectation that more of the efforts, actions and measures we are already undertaking in these areas will successfully come to fruition next years and make the results of the diligent project planning and execution being done under this administration more apparent to all Nigerians.’ It is doubtful if the President truly believes that Nigerians can trust him on this one, after many broken promises in the past one year and sheer unwillingness to assuage the cruelty unleashed on them by his administration’s lethargy and incompetence. Indeed, this President and his forebears in the ruling behemoth have collectively mismanaged – in the last thirteen years - the hopes of Nigerians and brought the Nation into impecunious status through unprecedented corruption and profligacy.

“With N2.67 Trillion and N1.05 Trillion said to have been spent on fuel subsidy in 2011 and 2012 respectively, this administration has unwittingly created a bleeding pipe – in which the scarce resources of State are siphoned into private pockets of cronies and acolytes of the regime. The conundrum that this Administration has brought the Nation is that: any increase in world crude oil Price would not translate into the prosperity of the Nigeria and her Citizens. The administration of the fuel subsidy, under the regime, has become a phenomenon in legendary opacity and monstrous corrupt tendencies.

“On security, the administration has demonstrated lack of capacity in tackling the myriad of insecurity issues that have assailed the Nation in the outgoing year. After each deadly bomb blast- with attendant fatalities- it had become a regular template of Presidential response to listen to assurances of investigation and security cover for all under the Nation space. This is why, as a Party, we believe President’s season’s message is a damp squib.

“An Administration that continually carries on with nauseous impunity, whilst the people’s rights to good living are continually being trampled upon, cannot be trusted. An Administration, that is incapable of prioritizing the Nation’s need as against the avaricious comfort of its Principals and minions, cannot be trusted. An Administration that, through its character and body language continually plays up the ethno-religious fault lines of the Nation’s geo-politics, cannot be trusted. An Administration, that continually deals in deliberate mendacity and employs obscurantist policy as its philosophy, cannot be trusted.

“As a Party, we know too well about the extemporaneous foundation of this regime. It was more interested in seizing political Power rather than the adequate planning for effectual governance. We have equally noted that the same national existential conditions, that brought untold anguish and increased the squalid environments of the Nation in the last one year, have not changed. It is easily discernible, therefore, that the President’s speech was meant to fulfill a hollow ritual and not the communication based on perspicacious planning for a better future. On our part, we wish the Nigerian people Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year.”

•Photo: President Jonathan’s Christmas Message has been rubbished by the opposition.

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