Banji Aluko – Benin City with agency report
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, at the weekend, assured Nigerians that the terrorist group would soon be exterminated from the country by his government, just as the dreaded Ebola virus was.
The president, who said there was no other stable political party in the country apart from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), noted that if members of the party did not create enemies among themselves and were united, it would win back the states it lost to opposition parties.
Jonathan made this declaration at the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium in Benin, Edo State, venue of the South-South unity rally of the party.
President Jonathan, who also made a courtesy call on the Oba of Benin, Oba Erediauwa, said his government established a maritime university to train specialists in the marine transport system so as to ensure a complete overhaul of the transport system in the country, pointing out that existing rail lines in were being rehabilitated, while new and modern ones were being constructed.
President Jonathan averred that his government had reduced poverty by 50 per cent, while defending the concept of stomach infrastructure.
“You cannot lead hungry people,” he said.
National chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, who also spoke at the rally, accused the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) of using weak tactics in an attempt to create division in the PDP.
“Let them shut up and mind their business. We have decided and it is up to them to bring their candidate. I can assure you that our candidate is better than theirs. The leadership of the PDP is united under President Jonathan.
“Those who are trying to divide us are not smart and are doing it childishly. We remain focus toward winning the 2015 elections. We are the only party that does not believe in rigging,” the former governor of Bauchi State stated.
While welcoming former chieftains of the APC, including Chief Tom Ikimi, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu and others into the PDP, he stated that the party had corrected the internal intrigues that caused their departure from the party, promising that Edo and Rivers states would soon become PDP states.
Also, Vice-President Namadi Sambo said the present administration had completed seven power projects with a total of 2,000 megawatts for the South-South under the Transformation Agenda.
Similarly, Senate President David Mark described Jonathan as ‘’a good sell,” hence, his unanimous adoption by the party as its candidate for 2015.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party, Chief Tony Anenih, said the zone had every reason to be proud of its contribution to national development, adding that it had made sacrifice to keep the country together and contributed to economic growth.
Earlier, the president had inaugurated the newly completed Benin-Ofosu-Ore section of the Benin-Sagamu dual carriage way with a promise to fix other roads in the country.
In his remark at the inauguration, the state governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, described the standard of the work done on the expressway as first-class, noting that it was about the most outstanding intervention in the nation’s transport system.
Minister of Works, Mr Mike Onolememen, in his address, said the Federal Government awarded the contract for the first phase of the expressway, which starts from Dawson-Akpakpava in Benin to Ofosu in Ondo State, at a cost N24.2 billion, in order to assuage the suffering of road users.
