The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna State yesterday dismissed the criticisms heaped on the state governor, Mr Patrick Yakowa, by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) for offering free feeding to fasting Muslim faithful, decribing it as false and biased.
The ACN had accused Governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa’s PDP government of deception following the introduction of Ramadan free feeding across the state.
PDP, in a statement issued by its Public Relations Officer, Hon. Ibrahim Aliyu Wosono, described ACN’s criticism as ‘clueless, unintelligent, myopic and the height of deliberate display of undiluted ignorance.”
The ruling party declared its confidence in the ability of the governor to effectively govern the state, manifested in the overwhelming victory he got at the poll, which the ACN members in the state were yet to come to terms with.
The statement said: “For ACN to describe the laudable free Ramadan feeding to the less privileged in our society in this holy month of Ramadan as a ‘deceptive jamboree’ portrays the party’s gross and callous insensitivity to our religious feelings.
“It is on record that hundreds of the Muslim Ummah, including card-carrying members of the ACN in Kaduna State, break their fast through this free feeding and we have not heard the ACN asking their members not to partake in it. We have also looked very hard but have not seen a single free feeding point where the ACN had even attempted a ‘deceptive jamboree.’
Listing PDP’s success in the state, the statement further said: “As to whether Governor Yakowa has any blueprint for developing the state, we would kindly direct the myopic ACN executives to the Fourth Bridge and Access Roads currently under construction. Have they also taken a drive to the Millennium City and seen the numbers of houses meant for civil servants already completed out of the 512 projected for? Have they seen the houses under construction in both Zaria and
Kafanchan? Have they seen the level of construction of the 300-bed Specialist Hospital? Have they seen how work is progressing at the multi-billion naira Zaria water works? Have they seen roads and other infrastructural development within the city, in Zaria, Kafanchan and other Local Governments? Were they around when the governor launched the distribution of MDGs drugs worth N900 million to all LGs? Have they decided that just because they are labeled as opposition party, they must therefore, all the time, mislead their members rather than tell them the truth? Must they talk even when there is no substance in it?
It advised the opposition party to criticize constructively.
criticisms are welcome because we all have a stake in the development of Kaduna State, but when they are tasteless, unintelligent and done in bad faith and ignorance, then we as PDP members have a duty to tutor the ACN leadership on what governorship is all about.We are encouraging His Excellency, Mr. Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa not to get distracted by clueless ‘actors’ in desperate need of cheap publicity, but to keep leading the state on the path of full development.”