Your score card is poor, very poor- PDP to President Buhari

PDP has reacted to President Buhari’s Easter message to Nigerians in which he said he has continued to work to meet the expectations of Nigerians since assuming office in May 2015. President Buhari in his Easter message said,

“As we celebrate yet another Easter, I urge all Nigerians to live peacefully with one another and do their utmost to make Nigeria a beautiful place to reside. In the almost two years of this administration, we have worked hard to meet the expectations of Nigerians by improving security, especially in the North-East, sustaining the campaign against corruption and have taken steps to revitalize the economy”.

PDP in a statement released by the National Publicity Secretary, PDP- NCC, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, the party says President Buhari has not met any expectations of Nigerians and that his score card is very poor. Read the statement below

“Once again, Happy Easter Celebrations and may the Sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ continue to guide our steps and help our Nation, Nigeria to overcome the spirit of lies, deceit and betrayal, Amen.

2. We read with rude shock and utter dismay, the President Muhammadu Buhari’s Easter Message to Nigerians and of particular interest is the Paragraph that said, “In the almost two years of this administration, we have worked hard to meet the expectations of Nigerians by improving security, especially in the North-East, sustaining the campaign against corruption and have taken steps to revitalize the economy”. Really?

3. These comments from Mr. President are to say the least untrue and an insult to the intelligence of Nigerians who have been at the receiving end of his government’s mismanagement in the last two years.

4. Fellow citizens, we respect the Easter Celebration mood but we wish to crave your indulgence to reflect on the state of affairs in the Country before and after President Buhari’s APC led Administration took over two years ago.

(i) INSECURITY

(a) The Origin of insurgency in the North-East part of the Country is well known locally and internationally. We cannot forget in a hurry, the frantic efforts made by late President Umar Musa YarAdua to nip the ugly incidence in the bud that later escalated to the formation of the deadly Boko Haram Sect. Equally, when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan took over Government, his administration made several efforts to procure ammunition from the West to prosecute the war on terror despite stiff resistance from some of the western powers to sell weapons to Nigeria.

(b). Notwithstanding, before the 2015 General Elections, the Goodluck Jonathan’s Administration was able to procure sizeable number of war heads, ammunition and other modern weaponry to fight the Boko Haram Terrorist Group. This breakthrough led to the successful dislodgment of the Terrorist Sect in the North-East before the March 28, 2015 Elections . Nigerians can testify to the Gallant display by the Nigerian Armed Forces that allowed elections to take place in virtually all the wards and Local Government Areas of Borno, Adamawa, Kebbi and Gombe states, respectively.

(c). The result of the election from these states gave President Buhari the edge in the Presidential election. APC Governors and officials who routinely condemn President Jonathan’s anti insurgency effort conveniently forgot that without the relative peace in those states at the time, there would have been no elections from which they could emerge as Governors.

(d). But Nigerians have been fed continuously with the wrong narrative as if we have all slipped into collective amnesia that Jonathan was hopelessly ineffective against the insurgents. The truth of the matter was that the insurgents were on the back foot, in hasty retreat and with their backs to the wall by February – March of 2015. The then NSA, Col. Ibrahim Dasuki had requested that the elections be postponed by six weeks to enable the government launch a major offensive to push Boko Haram out of all the occupied territories . This offensive achieved its objective so much so that elections took place in all the LGAs of the North East.

(e). It is a matter of conjecture if the war could not have been won earlier and the entire areas pacified if there have been no change of Government that led to a lull in those efforts while the new government took for ever to settle down. The armaments procured by President Jonathan are what is still being used to prosecute the war.

(f). Still on the War on insurgency in the North-East, the Goodluck Jonathan Administration set out to rebuild the region by establishing the Presidential Initiative for the North East (PINE). This Initiative covered all sectors in the rehabilitation efforts for the Zone with comprehensive project cost and partnership. This project was later inherited by President Muhammadu Buhari and Nigerians will note how PINE under the APC’s watch has fared. It has been a monumental disaster with allegations of contract awards to ghost companies and grass cutters while the IDPs endure daily hardship and starvation. Tragically, we are yet to see the outcome of the investigation on the Nigeria’s Fighter Jet that bombed the IDP Camp in Borno State killing more than 200 persons.

(g). For the record, the PDP not only defeated Boko Haram before it handed over power in 2015, we also reduced kidnapping and other anti-social vices in the Country and there was palpable state of peace in Nigeria as at May 2015. The same cannot be said today as kidnapping has taken a new turn. We are also facing another menace of insecurity in the name of Herdsmen attacking and displacing communities across the Country. Suicide is also gradually becoming a household name in Nigeria as citizens who cannot cope with the current harsh economic condition have resorted to taking their own lives.

(ii). War on Corruption:

(a). The War on corruption like other policies and programnmes of the Buhari led APC Administration has failed as well. As we have mentioned in our previous statements, any war on corruption that is selective and targeted at humiliating only leaders and other members of the opposition is a total failure. The entire anti-corruption war of the APC since inception is just in the media with only one conviction. Many of the Cases in Courts have been set aside and suspects discharged and acquitted while others are in EFCC and DSS detention centers without trial against their fundamental human rights as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

(b). Nigerians may also recall the several allegations of corruption made against prominent APC members that the Anti-graft Agency has not attended to. The Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu has been rejected twice by the Nigerian Senate because of damning corruption allegations against him made by another agency of government . The same with the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal and a host of other government officials against whom very serious allegations have been made. None of them have been subjected to the usual interrogations and investigation.

(c). The latest drama in town is the circus show of the discovery of huge sums of money of various currencies and denominations on daily basis without any trace of the owners . The most absurd of this charade is the macabre dance on the so called $43,449,947, £27,800 and N23,218,000 purportedly recovered at an apartment in Osborne Street, Ikoyi, Lagos. The Government is at the crossroad as the Whistle-blower and the EFCC are now shying away from telling Nigerians who owned the monies because undeniable evidence links the monies to the proceeds from the sale of Turbines by the former Governor of Rivers State and now Minister of Transport, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi. It has also been revealed that part of that proceeds was used by Mr. Amaechi to prosecute the campaigns of the APC in 2015.

(d). The claim by the Director-General of the Nigeria Intelligence Agency (NIA) that the agency owns the stolen money “found” in a private residence is another bad comedy by this failed APC Administration. We are therefore warning all agencies of government in the Country to excuse itself from partisan politics to forestall individuals in government manipulating their operations especially, a sensitive agency like the NIA and thereby leading the Nation into a Gestapo State that it’s fast drifting into.

(iii) The Economy:

(a). We cannot end this analysis without mentioning the comatose state of our economy in the last two years of this APC Administration. The immediate past PDP Government of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan grew Nigeria’s GDP from $270.5 billion in 2009, and handed over a Nigeria that had grown to become the fastest growing and largest economy in Africa and the 24th largest economy in the World, with a GDP of $574 billion. In May 2015, the PDP also handed over a single digit inflation rate but today, Inflation Rate in Nigeria is at a double digit of 17.26%.

(b). The Recession we are experiencing today in the Country is as a result of the failure of the APC led Administration to properly manage our economy. The Buhari Government is indeed clueless and had no economic plan until March 2017 when it launched the so called Recovery Plan. The economy is at a standstill. Major infrastructural development that began with the previous administrations of the PDP have been abandoned. Power Generation dwindled from over 5,000MW in 2015 to the present all time low of less than 2,000MW. The only project of note that this government has ever commissioned is the Abuja- Kaduna railroad which was 99 percent completed by the PDP administration.

(5). Against this backdrop and more, we are at a loss in reconciling President Muhammadu Buhari’s Easter message that he has met the expectations of Nigerians to the grim reality we have painted above. There is nothing to show by the APC led Government and we challenge the President and his team to articulate the two years achievement of this Government point by point and let Nigerians compare with previous PDP administrations.

God bless the PDP! God bless Nigeria!!