Jonathan Disowns Maku, Promises Focus on Agriculture, solid minerals

Source: pointblanknews.com

President Goodluck Jonathan today continued his presidential campaign in Nasarawa State with a pledge to focus more on agriculture and solid minerals in the face of falling crude oil prices.

The president faulted claims by his former Minister of Information and All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate in the state, Mr. Labaran Maku that he (Jonathan) asked the former minister to defect to APGA.

The president spoke today in Lafia, capital of Nasarawa State, saying there was no way he could have advised Maku to dump PDP.

“I cannot play anti-party. PDP is my party. All those who want to work for us must come to PDP,” noted the president, even as he urged the people of Nasarawa state to vote PDP.

Jonathan, who listed the federal university, Lafia, a 25,000-ton silo, a power sub-station, and the Doma dam, among other projects built by his administration in the state, promised to integrate Nasarawa state into Abuja.

“Nasarawa is a key state to the FCT. It is the closest state to FCT. Majority of people working in the FCT live in Nasarawa. We must integrate Nasarawa State in our development programme, the reason we want PDP in Nasarawa,” noted the president.

He described the loss of the 2011 governorship election with less than 1000 votes to rival All Progressives' Congress (APC)'s Tanko Al-Makura as a “mistake” which he urged the people to correct.

The president expressed his administration's desire to empower the youth more so that the party can field a younger presidential candidate n 2019.

“We want to encourage the young. We cannot be talking of youths being the leaders of tomorrow and keep taking the future from them. The next PDP presidential candidate must be younger than me.

“PDP is grading down from Obasanjo. We are building a country for the digital age. The average age of millionaires the world over is 35. We cannot imprison them (the youth) in Nigeria. We must push the youth and women to become global players. We'll continue to push and encourage young people in the arts, the academia, and business,” he promised.

Apparently swiping at the APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Jonathan said his administration would focus on creating more jobs and opportunities instead of building prisons.

'It is not my interest to build more prisons. Our interest is to reduce crime by empowering the people. We want to create opportunities for the young to employ labour thereby creating wealth, not to hound people in prisons, he said.

Also commenting on Maku, President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, as well as the Director-General of the Jonathan Campaign Organization, Senator Ahmadu Ali described the former minister as “an ungrateful young man.”

Both speakers urged the people of the state not to be deceived by Maku, whom they said had been lying to people that it was President Jonathan who asked him to dump PDP for APGA.

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