PDP REPLIES OYEGUN: WE HANDED OVER A BETTER NIGERIA TO BUHARI

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Friday refuted the claim by the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Oyegun, that it was responsible for the current economic challenges Nigerians are facing under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari. 

Recall that the chairman of the ruling APC had on Thursday said the Nigeria is currently in intensive care unit after it was rescued from PDP.
The PDP reacting to the statement through its Director of New Media, Deji Adeyanju, said the PDP handed over to Buhari, a Nigeria significantly better than the one presided over today by him.

“We read the statement by Chief John Oyegun, Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), to the effect that PDP has no right to speak about Buhari’s economic failures and felt compelled to respond for record purposes. First off, Section S39 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,” the party said.

“Secondly, we will not follow Chief Oyegun’s path by responding with an invective rejoinder. 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.

“No 1 destination for Foreign Investment in Africa with $395m in investments in Q1 2015 alone. Single digit inflation. It was 9.6% at the inception of the Buhari admin. It stands at 16.5% now; a GDP at an average growth of 8% p/a in the last 10 yrs. Nigeria is experiencing its first -five GDP growth since 1999.

“A telecoms sector that has received more than $32b in investment since 2001.The largest economy in African valued at over $500b. – An economy that was reducing the employment rate”.

“An economy that had successfully increased per capita income from $299.4 in 1999 to $2640 in 2015. A stock market valued at N11.66t. The Nigeria Stock market has lost more than N1t of its value since the inception of the Buhari admin.

“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.

“An economy that was diversifying by exponentially increasing non-oil revenue for the federation. A successfully unbundled power sector with a suitable environment for investment. An economy that had successfully reduced its personnel cost over the last five years.

“Several tools for combating corruption such as IPPIS, TSA, GIFMIS, EFCC and ICPC. In the past year, the APC led FG has detained and publicly accused Col. Sambo Dasuki and 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 and in accordance respect for the rule of law.

The party further said: “We feel compelled to remind Chief Oyegun that not all monies generated from crude oil sales accrue to the FG. Monies from crude sales accrue to Nigeria and its various JV partners.
What accrues to Nigeria is then shared between the FG, States and 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 admin to audit NNPC if he feels the need to and  to prosecute anyone found guilty of misappropriation of public funds according to the law.”

The statement said there were no economic indices anywhere in the world by which the Buhari admininistration can be rated better than anmy previous PDP administration.

“His performance as President thus far has been shambolic and on a daily basis he reverses the gains we made. Chief Oyegun should be reminded that we handed over a significantly better Nigeria to Buhari than we received from the military. The Chairman should also be reminded that Buhari played a significant role in the state of Nigeria handed over to us – first as Head of State between 1983 and 1985, then as a member of the government of the Late General Sani Abacha.

The Party added that the APC chairman would do better to advise President Buhari on how to reverse the recession his policies have brought on the nation, how to resolve the humanitarian crises in the North East; and how to reverse the polio outbreak recently discovered in Nigeria after the PDP’s policies had seen an eradication of scourge from more than half of the world’s polio cases in 2009 to 6 in 2014 and 0 in 2015.