Jonathan not incompetent - Presidency

The Presidency yesterday took a swipe at critics of President Goodluck Jonathan, describing the  accusation of incompetence leveled against him by the opposition as mere political propaganda and untrue.

It stressed that no Nigerian expected the level of insurgency that the Jonathan Administration inherited on assumption of office.

The Presidency, however, dared the opposition and critics of Jonathan's administration to come up with facts of his incompetence and lack of achievements.

In a statement signed, yesterday, by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, the Presidency urged critics to x-ray the challenges Nigeria had prior to the emergence of President Jonathan as the country's leader, adding that achievements and competence cannot be judged by noise making, propaganda and deception which it argued were the hallmarks of the opposition.

Okupe said: 'President Jonathan's background does not fall into the mould of incompetence or cluelessness that the opposition tries too hard to sell to the Nigerian populace.

'By definition, Reference Dictionary says: 'Incompetence is lacking qualification or ability'. Webster Dictionary defines it as 'lacking the qualities needed for effective action'. Going by the above definitions, President Goodluck Jonathan is perhaps the most academically qualified Nigerian President ever.

'By cognate qualification, no President has had the experience, preparation and tutelage for the post of the President than Goodluck Jonathan. He was Deputy Governor, Governor, Vice President, Acting President and elected President. Taking the Webster Dictionary definition, an incompetent person, lacks the qualities needed for effective action.

'We do not wish to assert the obvious fact that the President has the requisite qualification for effective action, rather we will examine the challenges that faced the nation before his election as President and state how he has tackled them. This will also probably disprove the Governor Fashola's 'Mechanic allegory'.

'Empirical evidence shows that President Goodluck Jonathan, has not only tackled the challenges he inherited, but has successfully solved many of them while those that remain are part of works in progress which, God willing, will be resolved before the end of 2014.

'The repeated false claims by the opposition that the President is incompetent is not only untrue and obviously cannot be supported by facts, but is also part of the opposition's strategy to present the government as not being effective so as to advance their selfish cause. Nigerians should therefore ignore this wild and baseless comments and team up with the silent and effective achiever, in the person of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

'We want to assure Nigerians that with the undoubted and continued effective implementations of the Transformation Agenda, Nigeria will never ever be the same again. Achievements and competence are always not judged by noise making, propaganda and deception which are the hallmarks of the activities of the Nigerian opposition.'