The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has 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 the absurd last Friday.
In a statement issued in Lagos on Monday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the presidency also
condoned 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 is 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
is 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.
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