The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has raised an alarm over what it described as the reckless extravagance of the Jonathan administration, which it fears, could plunge the country into bankruptcy if left unchecked.
In a statement issued in Ilorin, yesterday, by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party described as totally unacceptable and utterly shameful that the government has not made a positive impact on Nigerians.
It said that the government hadnow beaten its own record for profligacy by its decision to build a N2.2 billion banquet hall in the Presidential Villa, which the man who announced the ‘white elephant’ project, FCT Minister Bala Mohammed, justified by saying that “other smaller countries have better banquet halls near their presidential residences’’.
“It is interesting that a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is comparing the country with ‘smaller countries’ when it comes to justifying a project that will only benefit a few elite. Does the minister know that the citizens of the so-called smaller countries enjoy uninterrupted electricity supply? Does he know that the citizens of those countries don’t have to queue up endlessly for petrol and kerosene; that they don’t have to depend on Okada for transportation; and that they have no road as terrible as Lagos-Ibadan expressway?”
‘’In any case, nothing can justify the decision to spend such a huge amount of money on a Banquet Hall in a country where many go to bed hungry most nights, where youth unemployment is at a high 46.5 percent and where projects that could make Nigeria to achieve the MDGs, less than three years to the target date, are almost non-existent,’’ ACN said.
The party also condemned the decision by the Petroleum Minister to spend N6.5 billion for ‘’sensitisation’’ on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB); the President’s propensity to travel to international meetings with a bloated entourage and the continuous allocation of huge funds to purchase aircraft for the presidential fleet, and said that they all fit into the mindless profligacy of the Jonathan Administration.
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