Jonathan’s Utterance Unfortunate – Fashola

Posted by admin Lagos, Latest Politics, State News Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola has reacted to President Goodluck Jonathan’s remark that the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) would wrest the South-West from “rascals”, saying such a statement was unbecoming of a president of a country like Nigeria.

“The South-West is too important to be left in the hands of rascals. We must take it over from them. The ruling party must take over Lagos. We must also take over Osun and Ekiti States,” Jonathan said on Tuesday in Ibadan, Oyo State where he went to flag off his campaign for the April presidential election.

Speaking, to newsmen yesterday at the presidential lounge of the Murtala Muhammed Airport in Lagos, Fashola said that the office of Nigerian president “is very high and I do not think that that kind of language, coming from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, is presidential.”

He pointed out that the PDP-led government had not built a single federal road in Lagos in about 12 years of the party’s administration at the center. He also added that for the period under review, Lagosians have had no electricity and were the ones who bear the cost of their own security in spite of the huge amount voted yearly for security in the federal budget.

“Why should they be worried about our success in Lagos? If it gives them sleepless nights and it makes them uncomfortable, I make no apology. That is why I am in government; to succeed, to improve the quality of lives of the people as best as I can. “Look, this is a party that has spent 12 years trying to provide electricity, we have provided three major electricity plants, and the next one will be completed in a few weeks. And clearly therefore they are deficient in ideas, they are deficient in planning.

“They spent four years trying to build a 400-metre bridge in Ota and on the day that they finally went to commission that bridge, instead of apologizing to the people, they fought themselves over who will cut the tape. Meanwhile the road that leads to the bridge is not finished. We built Okota Link Bridge in 18 months; it is even longer than that bridge that they were fighting over,” said Fashola.

The governor stated that he did not win election by luck and that the electorate would not vote for him on that basis. He added that the PDP governorship candidate in the state sincerely has no better programmes than him.

“If the PDP wants to swap candidates for the governor of Lagos I will be ready to face him because its candidate is not talking about what he wants to do in Lagos.

“The Lagos voters will not vote on the basis of luck. I didn’t win this office on the basis of luck; it was won on the basis of very a clear manifesto of the (ACN), very clear ideas about how to grow the economy.

-Leadership

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