May 29: Buhari’s five years wasteful — PDP

Osaretin OSADEBAMWEN Abuja

 

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Friday described the five years of President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a waste.

The opposition party said its verdict on the APC-led federal government was that it had taken Nigeria 60 years backward.

PDP maintained that the Buhari-led APC government has turned Nigeria into a wasteland, had her economy devastated, shattered national dreams and crushed the hope of citizens while setting the nation backward.

The party, at a press briefing in Abuja yesterday, said that May 29, formerly Democracy Day before it was changed to June 12 by President Buhari, has become synonymous with the enthronement of incompetence, insensitive leadership, endemic corruption in high places and governance by propaganda and false performance claims.

PDP at the briefing addressed by National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, lamented that the All Progressives Congress administration has reversed all the gains achieved by the PDP for which May 29 was always celebrated and left the country dejected and despondent.

Kola said under President Buhari, May 29 has become a day of grieving for Nigerians; a day for commemoration of failed promises, reversal of gains achieved by past leaders and retrogression in our body polity as a nation.

The PDP spokesman said more importantly, the Buhari administration has failed in its three major governance planks of provision of security, economic recovery and fight against corruption and “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.

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He said: “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.

“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,” the party submitted.