Buhari, APC Have Set Nigeria 60 Years Backward — PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a dig at the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration describing his five years stewardship as “wasteful, a season of the locusts.”

In a strongly worded statement issued on Friday by Spokesman of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, on the state of the nation, the PDP said after reviewing the five years of the Buhari administration, both the president and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) have “taken Nigeria 60 years backward.”

The statement accused Buhari and the APC of turning the country into a wasteland after allegedly destroying the economy.

The statement said under Buhari, May 29, has become “synonymous with the enthronement of incompetence, insensitive leadership, endemic corruption in high places and governance by propaganda and false performance claims.”

It also accused the APC administration of reversing all the “gains achieved by the PDP for which May 29 was always celebrated and left the country dejected and despondent.”

Furthermore, it said under Buhari, Nigerians always grieve on May 29, as it has become “a day for commemoration of failed promises, reversal of gains achieved by past leaders and retrogression in our body polity as a nation.”

The statement reads in part :”This administration has failed woefully in its three major governance planks of provision of security, economic recovery and fight against corruption.

“In the last five years, the APC administration has done nothing but driving our nation along the precipices; reneged on all its campaign promises, ruined our productive sector, frustrated our farmers, manufacturers and small scale entrepreneurs, devalued our naira, wrecked employment opportunities for our youth, turned our once prosperous nation into the poverty capital of the world while accumulating huge foreign debts for this generation and the unborn.

“Under five years, President Buhari has borrowed from every corner of the world. These include external borrowing of $10.72 billion (N4.1 trillion) in 2015, $11.41 billion (N4.4 trillion) in 2016, $18.91 billion (N7.3 trillion) in 2017, $25.27 billion (N9.8 trillion) in 2018, $27.68 billion (N10.7 trillion) in 2019 as well as 2020 loans of $3.4 billion (N1.3 trillion) from IMF, $4.4 million (N1.594 billion) internal borrowing, $22.7 billion (N8.8 trillion) external loan and the recently yet to be approved $5.513 billion (N2.1 trillion) waiting before the National Assembly.

“Our party had already alerted Nigerians that with the volume of borrowing, President Buhari and the APC have placed our nation on the international auction market.

“In the last five years, corruption has also worsened in government circle as shown in Transparency International (TI)’s corruption perception index. Federal Government agencies such as the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) among others have been opened up for pillaging by the cabal in the Presidency and the APC.”

Continuing, the statement noted that the government only pays lip to security as bandits, insurgents and marauders were now having a field day with killings.

“It is distressing that instead of heeding wise counsel to accept failure and avoid making false performance claims, the Buhari Presidency just yesterday, released a list of recycled fictitious achievements, including very insensitive claim of having routed out bandits; even as marauders were pillaging communities and killing our compatriots in Sokoto and other states, particularly in the Northwest.

“A look at the list exposed reused figures and data without corresponding verifiable projects in any part of the country, apart from attempts to appropriate PDP projects,” the statement said.

The party called on the president to wake up to the reality by accepting “failure and seek help since it has become clear that his administration as presently constituted has devastated our nation and leading us on a journey to nowhere.”