The Nigeria’s main opposition political party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP), has dismissed the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government self claimed achievements in government, saying that the success stories of the Federal Government reeled out by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed were farce.
The Party, in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, stated that the Performance claims by the All Progressive Congress (APC) led Federal Government could only be a product of delusions of grandeur; a joke of the year, as the word on the street where the real Nigerians are, is completely at variance with the fabricated lies and imaginary performance indices contained in the report.
The statement reads: “Is it not unpardonable that instead of facing its failures to secure our nation, the APC-led government which is still habouring a self-confessed terrorism apologist, is celebrating the mass killings currently going on in our country by engaging in self-praise in the face of failure while terrorists continue to ravage our nation?
“On economy, the APC government had become so addicted to falsehood that it had forgotten that Nigerians are aware that the PDP government handed over a $550 billion economy (largest in Africa and 26th globally) and a diversified economy to the APC in 2015. Today, our nation has become the poverty capital of the world due to the mismanagement, corruption and recklessness of the APC government.
“In 2015, Nigeria’s external debt was $7.3 billion. Today under the clueless APC government, in just over six years, the external debt has reached over $38 billion and counting, with no corresponding investment in the economy or infrastructure. Today, the poverty rate in Nigeria is 71 percent as against 32 percent when the APC government took over in 2015. Between January and September 2021, over $1.8 billion dollar was expended on debt services, yet the APC government can shamelessly claim to have performed in 2021.
“It is self-evident that only the APC gangsters can claim to have performed in the face of life discounting experiences of the ordinary Nigerians. Thankfully Nigerians now know them for who they are. The APC government has nothing to say to the fact that under its watch, the naira has collapsed from N198 to a dollar handed over to it in 2015 to over N500 today; that the pump price of fuel has risen from N87 per liter in 2015 to N165 per liter today; that unemployment has risen from 7.3 percent in 2015 to over 33 percent today and that price of food items have so skyrocketed that millions of Nigerian families are no longer able to afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life.
“Furthermore, it is ludicrous that the APC government claimed to be fighting corruption when it has become the haven of compromised and corrupt politicians. Evidently, that is why it has no answer to reports of how APC leaders and their cronies stole over N25 trillion from various government agencies. It also explains why the APC government has failed to prosecute its officials and APC leaders openly indicted for corruption.
“On infrastructure, it is indeed appalling that the APC-led government could list projects that exist only on paper as achievements and even attempted to appropriate projects by PDP administrations. The PDP challenges the APC government to name one landmark project it conceptualized, commenced and completed in the last six years.
“Instead of being guided by fact file of manifest failures, the APC is oblivious of the pains and tears that their almost seven years of proven disappointment have inflicted on Nigerians. For this insensitivity, the APC should await the inevitable verdict from Nigerians in the 2023 elections”.
