APC condemns Patience Jonathan’s acceptance of Honorary Doctorate Award

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has
said it was unreasonable for the First Lady,
Patience Jonathan to have decided to
receive an Honorary Doctorate award in
South Korea, even when the nation’s
universities remain shutdown under the
Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.
APC Interim National Publicity Secretary,
Alhaji Lai Mohammed stated this in a
statement issued in Lagos. The statement
asserted that if the First Lady and her
advisers were reasonable enough, it would
have been very obvious to them that
embracing such an award when Nigerian
students were lamenting over ASUU strike
would affect the sensibility of Nigerian
students.
The statement reads,”In their eagerness to
gobble up one spurious award after
another, they forgot that if the Hansei
University in South Korea had been shut by
a strike because the government there has
repudiated an agreement it willingly signed
with the teachers, the institution would not
have been able to give any honorary degree
to anyone.
”A government that is unwilling to spend
the nation’s resources on the education of
its youth has no qualms about wasting the
same resources for a junket by the First
Lady and her cheerleaders halfway around
the world for what is nothing more than an
ego-massaging award,” it said.
APC sarcastically said that the
reasons behind the award of the
Honorary Doctorate to the First Lady was
particularly interesting, which is that, “she’s
a humanitarian who has dedicated her life
to working for the less privileged in Nigeria
and Africa especially for women and
children. Her vision as the defender of the
poor in Nigeria fits into Hansei University’s
motto of a practising Christian.”
”What the university forgot to add is that
while the First Lady may have dedicated her
life working for the less privileged in
Nigeria, there is no indication that she and
her husband are sparing any thought for
the poor Nigerian students whose dreams
for a better future have been put on hold
by the long strike that has paralyzed
academic activities in public universities,”
the party said.
The statement further said that the First
Lady should have used her humanitarian
gesture to advocate for the suspension of
ASUU strike instead of her acceptance of an
award.
”It is instructive that the First Lady would
rather corral some hapless women to the
Eagle Square in Abuja to illegally campaign
for her husband, in furtherance of her
‘humanitarian’ gesture, instead of leading a
campaign of concerned mothers and
‘humanitarians’ to protest the deadlock in
ending the strike in our public universities,”
APC said