The All Progressives Congress, APC, has responded to a recent statement credited to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, where the opposition party accused it of making mockery of governance with premature celebration of imaginary achievements. The governing party insisted that President Muhammadu Buhari has already surpassed President Goodluck Jonathan’s achievements in the area of fighting insecurity.

National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, who made this known in a statement issued yesterday, maintained that President Buhari had done in three weeks what Jonathan could not do in six years.

While noting that the Peoples Democratic Party-led Federal Government could not get world powers to help Nigeria in fighting terrorism, he assured that the Buhari administration would wipe out terrorism within a short time.

According to the statement, “Within three weeks of President Buhari’s inauguration, he has done what the PDP government could not do in six years: Invigorate the fight against Boko Haram by rallying a regional and global front against the terror group.

“Today, the United States has pledged $5 million to the fight against Boko Haram, in addition to other material support. This is apart from the support that has been pledged by the G-7 to strengthen Nigeria’s efforts to quell the insurgency.

“Thanks to President Buhari’s shuttle diplomacy, the Multi-National Joint Task Force that the PDP government could not bring together for all of six years is ready to deploy more soldiers next month, while the President has ordered the release of $21m to facilitate the establishment of the headquarters of the force in N’Djamena, Chad.”

The APC mouthpiece stressed that Buhari had been able to restore Nigeria’s integrity and that many countries were beginning to respect Nigeria again, adding that the PDP-led federal government politicised the fight against terrorism which made it unable to protect Nigeria’s integrity.

The statement reads further, “Since assuming office about three weeks ago, President Buhari has visited Chad, Niger, Germany and South Africa, winning support and friends for Nigeria all over again and returning the country to the comity of respected nations.

“Those who were put off by the PDP government’s resort to politicising the fight against Boko Haram – even as the insurgents grew stronger – are now joining President Buhari to battle the terrorists. In no distant future, the results of his tireless efforts will begin to show.”

Stressing that Buhari was already doing better than Jonathan even though the President was far older than his predecessor, the party disclosed that Buhari was already assembling a team of highly skilled professionals that would help him to implement his promise of change.

It said, “On the domestic front, President Buhari has been handling pressing issues far away from the klieg light, and his efforts to assemble a first-class team to implement his change mantra, which he is personally driving, are continuing apace.

“We in the APC are sure most unbiased Nigerians are very proud of President Buhari and the vigour he has shown in governance, the kind of vigour we did not see in the immediate past administration that was presided over by a far younger man.”

The governing party held that only anarchists and non-democrats would ask a President who has not spent one month in office to resign.

It further held that the PDP had no moral right to criticise the APC within less than month of Buhari’s administration since the PDP had failed to make any meaningful change in Nigeria despite being the party to have ruled Nigeria the longest, spending 16 years in power.