‘APC has put Nigeria in reverse gear from PDP gains’

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said it handed a better Nigeria to President Muhammadu Buhari than it meant it when the party took over in 1999.

The party also insisted that all the gains it recorded while in charge of the governance of the country have all been reversed by the All Progressives Congress, APC led administration.

The PDP stated this while responding to a statement credited to the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, that the PDP lack the moral right to comment on the current state of the Nigerian economy, insisting that the party brought the current economic crisis upon the nation.

Odigie-Oyegun also accused the PDP led administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan of not being able to account for N33trn it received as revenue.

PDP, which said in its response that it would not toe the same line with Odigie-Oyegun by responding in an invective manner, however said the performance of President Buhari has been shambolic.

The statement read: “We read the statement by Chief John Oyegun, chairman of APC, to the effect that PDP has no right to speak about President Buhari’s economic failures and felt compelled to respond for record purposes.

“First of all, Section 39 CFRN guarantees all Nigerians the right to freedom of expression. Chief Oyegun and his party would do well to stop its many attempts at violating this right. Secondly, we will not follow Chief Oyegun’s path by responding with an invective rejoinder.

“However, as lawyers say, we will let the facts speak for themselves. For the avoidance of doubt these are some of the economic indices inherited by the Buhari administration:

“a. No 1 destination for Foreign Investment in Nigeria with $395m in investments in Q1 2015 alone.

“b. Inflation at single digit interest rates for several years. It was 9.6% at the inception of the Buhari administration.

“c. A GDP that had grown at an average of 8% p/a in the last 10 years. Nigeria is currently experiencing its first negative GDP growth since the return of Democracy in 1999.

“d. A telecoms sector that has received more than $32b in investment since 2001.

“e. The largest economy in African valued at over $500b.

“f. An economy that was managing successfully dealing with its unemployment challenges

“g. An economy that had successfully increased per capita income from $299.4 in 1999 to $2640 in 2015.

“h. A stock market valued at N11.66t. The Nigerian Stock market has lost more than N1.3t of its value since the inception of the Buhari admin.

“i. An economy that had reduced its food import bill from well over N1t to N684.7 billion as at December 2013 & and was on target to meet its target of producing 20million MT of food annually.

“j. An economy that was diversifying by exponentially increasing non-oil revenue for the federation.

“k. A successfully unbundled power sector with an inductive environment for investment.
l. An economy that had successfully reduced its personnel cost over the last 5 years.

“m. Several tools for combating corruption such as IPPIS, TSA, GIFMIS, EFCC & ICPC.

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“In the past year, the APC led FG has detained and publicly accused Col. Sambo Dasuki & members of our party for corruption. We find it surprising that the FG is asking for secret trials for the accused persons. We urge the FG to try them openly & in respect for the rule of law.

“We feel compelled to remind Chief Oyegun that not all monies generated from crude oil sales accrue to the Federal Government. Monies from crude sales accrue to Nigeria & its various JV partners. What accrues to Nigeria is then shared between the FG, States & LGAs subject to the deduction of operational expenses.

“It is either a rookie mistake, or deliberate misrepresentation to state that the Jonathan admin could not account for money it is under no obligation to account for.

“Having said that, we urge the Buhari administration to audit NNPC if he feels the need to and to prosecute anyone found guilty of misappropriation of public funds according to the law. There are no economic indices anywhere in the world by which the Buhari admin can be rated better than ours.

“His performance as President thus far has been shambolic and on a daily basis he reverses the gains we have made.

“Chief Oyegun should be reminded that we handed over a significantly better Nigeria to Buhari than we received from the military. Chief Oyegun should also be reminded that president played a significant role in the state of Nigeria handed over to us – first as Head of State between 1983 & 1985, then as a member of the government of the Late General Sani Abacha.

“Chief Oyegun would be better served to advice the president on how to reverse the recession he has brought on us. Or how to resolve the humanitarian crises in the North East. Or how to reverse the polio outbreak recently discovered in Nigeria after our policies had seen a complete eradiction of polio from more than half of the world’s polio cases in 2009 to 6 in 2014 and 0 in 2015.

“We would like to give Chief Oyegun the compliments of our warmest regards.”

By Timothy Enietan-Matthews

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