PMB’s Administration Failed To Understand Issues Raised By Obasanjo – PDP

BY AMOS DUNIA, ABUJA – The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday said the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has refused to understand that the issues raised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, for which he advised President Buhari not to seek re-election, are already trending in the minds of Nigerians and cannot be dismissed with doctored reports and half-truths.

The PDP specifically stressed that it amounts to executive rascality for the APC Federal Government to use its Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, to falsely claim that the economy, which it wrecked, has come out of recession, when the glaring reality shows skyrocketing costs, soaring unemployment rate, ceaseless closure of businesses as well as accumulation of foreign and domestic debts.

The opposition party also said indices presented by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Federal Government in the attempt to justify its claimed achievements in almost three years of governance were cooked up and will be unhelpful to President Muhammadu Buhari at the 2019 elections.

The party in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, further said the Federal Government arrogantly issued misleading indices at a time it ought to be very sober for its failures, thereby exposing the level of scorn and disdain it has for suffering Nigerians.

Ologbondiyan said; “It is most unfortunate the resort to falsehood by the Federal Government, while cleverly glossing over very serious issues of deteriorating economy, incessant killings, fuel crisis, corruption in the corridors of power and absolute failure of governance as raised by Nigerians.

“In its attempt to further hoodwink Nigerians, the Federal Government, through the minister of information, cleverly stated that the nation’s Foreign Reserves had risen to $40bn, while covering the fact presented by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that our foreign debt has also escalated to $15.2bn under APC’s misrule.

“This is also a government whose domestic debt profile has scared many contractors off their sites and forcing millions of Nigerians into the labour market, while development projects initiated by the PDP across the nation remains stagnated.”

The PDP noted that the Federal Government also failed to inform Nigerians that other foreign financial instruments are being depleted, including the Excess Crude Account (ECA), from which the APC-led Federal Government attempted to pilfer $1bn last year.

According to the opposition party; “It is ridiculous for the APC-led Federal Government to rely on an NBS report in giving an impression that the nation’s inflation rate has fallen at 15.37%, while hiding the fact that inflation rate as at May 2015, when it took over rein of governance from the PDP, was 13.7%.

“This is even as the soaring price of commodities exposes the fact that 15.37% is not positive, as the APC government wants Nigerians to believe. The fact is that the APC is plunging the nation into deeper economic woes while trying to sugar coat the issues with figures.

“Furthermore, the Federal Government attempted to delude Nigerians by claiming that the naira has become stable, while glossing over the fact that it fell from about N165/1USD in 2015 to the current appalling N360/1USD.

“This is in addition to phony claims of increase in foreign capital inflow of $1.8bn, while refusing to address facts from NBS that under their misrule, 16 million Nigerians are unemployed, 18 million more are underemployed, while another 27.44 million refused to work in 2016 for various reasons not unrelated to frustration in the polity,” Ologbondiyan stated.

The PDP spokesman said the fact is that the Buhari-led APC government has overstretched the forbearance of our people just as its display of disdain to the suffering of Nigerians is unprecedented in our national history.