By Mohammed Kandi and Stanley Onyekwere
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, yesterday declared that keeping the incumbent Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government in power beyond 2015 will spell doom for the country, calling on the citizens to change their fate through the electoral process.
Fashola, who spoke at the Annual Conference and Awards ceremony of the Leadership Newspapers yesterday in Abuja, emphasized that the desired change for which Nigerians yearn, was only possible through their votes.
“We must turn Nigeria around…we cannot keep this calm for another four years; the consequences will be grave, it will be global and it will be reverberating. Nigerians must renew their own values and we must find our own solution from within us, and to be specific, that change must come from within our democratic process,” Fashola stated.
He added “…an average would be interested in personal safety, in how to get food, a shelter for himself and his family, in prosperity and in education and a work. Nigerians have not yet experienced the promise of this country because our values and moral codes have gone different direction.”
Presenting a paper on the theme of the occasion, which was “Rebuilding the Nation: Lessons from Other Lands”, Fashola further disclosed that the PDP leg government has failed to entrench a true transformation as it has professed.
He described the on-going Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government as mere slogan, pointing out that “If truly there was a desire to make a change for the better which is transformation means; it should be obvious as a statement of intention from the budget.”
He added “details of the Federal budget put together between 2010 and 2013 show that every year, in those four years, we have budgeted at least, 62% and at most 74% on recurrent spending, while the maximum budget for capital expenditure from which roads, power, hospitals and bridges can be executed, have received at most, 38% in 2010, and as little as 26% in 2011.”
