The All Progressives Congress, APC, has maintained that PresidentGoodluck Jonathan is practicing “kindergarten governance” and has challenged him to seek redress in court if he felt slighted by the comment.

The spokesman to President Jonathan, Reuben Abati, had reproved the interim national chairman of the APC, Bisi Akande,  for his critical comments, saying it is rude for the politician to disparage the position and person of the presedent.

The interim national chairman of the APC, Bisi Akande on Saturday accused Jonathan of treating national issues with levity, observing that “All he is concerned about is his third term.”

“I did not see President Jonathan as a serious-minded person. Nigeria’s problem today is Jonathan. I  wrote him twice when I was in office as National Chairman of the ACN on issues bordering on the state of the nation and, till date, he did not acknowledge the letters not to talk of replying.”,

Reacting, Abati said that only “gross ignorance and lack of consideration could have led Chief Akande to refer to a President who, having served as deputy governor, governor, vice president and president, has far more experience in governance at the highest level than him …as a kindergarten leader.”

In a swift reaction on Monday, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Lai Mohammed, insists that its national chairman  “merely told the truth”, adding that there was nothing “strange” or “wrong” in criticizing a democratically-elected President.
The APC said nothing confirmed Akande’s assertion that Jonathan is running a kindergarten presidency than the “crude” manner in which it responded to the “frank but constructive criticism”.

Mohammed said the Presidency was yet to respond to the main points of its chairman’s statement, choosing instead to dwell on irrelevancies.
”Where is the presidency’s response to Chief Akande’s assertion that he has written two letters to the President over the serious challenges facing the country, without getting a response? Where is the presidency’s response to Chief Akande’s assertion that President Jonathan is witch-hunting political opponents?” the party queried.
The APC added that Nigerians were yet to feel the impact of the administration that has a record of widespread insecurity, unemployment, dilapidated infrastructure, oil theft and unbridled corruption.

It recalled the latest annual report of the African Development Bank, ADB, which said that the proportion of people (Nigerians) living below the national poverty line has worsened from 65.5 per cent in 1996 to 69.0 per cent in 2010, most of those years under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and the last four under President Jonathan.

They party said it is not interested in how many hours the President sleeps in a day or in the fact that he once served as a deputy governor, governor and Vice President, but in the impact his administration has made in the life of the ordinary Nigerian.

It also describes as lies and “a figment of the presidency’s imagination” the claim of a war between its leaders, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari. It said that the PDP only came up with that position because it could not fathom how the leadership of the APC could put national interest above personal considerations.