ACN: We Did Not Insult the President

Steve Oronsaye

 The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has denied insinuations that the party engages in casting aspersions and insults on the person and office of the President.



The party’s position against the background of the Presidency’s displeasure over ACN’s criticism of the handling of the presentation of the report of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force.

It said Steve Oronsaye and Bernard Otti were the ones who insulted President Goodluck Jonathan by the way they turned the presentation of the report of the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force into a theatre of absurd last Friday.

In a statement issued yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the presidency might also have courted the insult by the way it handled the men’s outburst, treating them with kid gloves when they should have been censured for their audacity and discourteous behaviour at the public presentation.

‘’Oronsaye’s incredibly audacious statement, that ‘the President has asked us to submit the report....and so what?’ should have
elicited the reaction which the presidency issued to ACN’s statement, if indeed the presidency was concerned about insults,’’ it said.

ACN said the presidency is trying to blackmail the opposition by now accusing it of insulting the President, for merely saying the obvious, that the only reason Oronsaye and Otti could have acted in such a brazen manner with the President seated right there, was if they were indeed programmed to perform the role of spoilers by discrediting the report.

“President Jonathan is a democratically-elected President, not an oracle who cannot and must not be criticised. Therefore, we at the ACN will continue to offer a constructive criticism of his administration, true to our role of providing responsible opposition.

“We stand by our statement and will not be cowed by this old, cheap trick of labelling constructive criticism as an insult,” ACN said, challenging the presidency to deny the facts contained in the party’s earlier statement on the issue.

‘’Let’s restate the facts, for the avoidance of doubt: One, Oronsaye and Otti were already serving on the task force before they were given the plum Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) jobs. Two, the Federal Government could have waited for them to complete their assignment before giving them suspicious appointments, if only to avoid possible conflict of interest or any perception of such.

“Three, the men could have resigned their membership of the task force after they got themselves the NNPC jobs. And four, they could have written a minority report when they disagreed with the conclusion of the task force, instead of choosing the presentation venue to discredit the report.”

ACN said the presidential spokesman Reuben Abati, should have addressed, the facts instead of resorting to name calling.
ACN said it was not surprised at Abati’s metamorphosis, adding that “his snout now deeply inserted in the nectar of office, criticisms have turned to insults in his eyes.”


Source: Thisdaylive