By Samuel Ogidan
Abuja
The Presidency yesterday faulted former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s comment that President Goodluck Jonathan’s government is under performing.
It said that not only were the claims of underperformance untrue and misleading, but that Jonathan has performed better than Obasanjo.
It would be recalled that at the weekend, Obasanjo rated Jonathan’s government below average.
In a statement yesterday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said, “We aver that Chief Obasanjo’s comments are untrue, misleading and clearly do not tally with the facts on the ground.”
He added, “we therefore wish to assert without equivocation that in terms of performance and achievements, no administration since 1960 when Nigeria gained independence from Britain, has done as much as that of President Jonathan. Every discerning and unbiased Nigerian will definitely attest to this fact as the evidence stare all of us in the face.
“We will show here that contrary to Chief Obasanjo’s position, the federal government under President Jonathan has performed excellently given the prevailing circumstances and resources available. An assessment of key sectors of national life under the Jonathan administration will definitely controvert Chief Obasanjo’s argument that President Jonathan has not performed well. We will prove this by looking at the performance of the following sectors under President Jonathan.”
In the power sector, Okupe said, “before President Jonathan came on board as President of this country in 2010, Nigeria faced serious challenges with generation, distribution and transmission of power.
“Nigeria had challenges with both generation of power and the installed capacity to ensure effective power supply. As a matter of fact, the total amount of power generated nationwide stood at 2550 megawatts; today it is over 4,000 megawatts.”
In terms of installed capacity, he said, “there has been remarkable improvement in 2011; our installed capacity to generate electricity stood at 5,900 MW by December 2013 it had increased to 6,953 MW.
“This impressive achieve was due to the completion of all the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) plants, which for reasons only he can explain, Chief Obasanjo had abandoned during his tenure,” Okupe said.
