The Presidency has listed some mistakes allegedly committed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government and concluded that Nigerians cannot trust them again with the running of the country.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said this in reaction to the communique issued by the PDP Governors’ Forum.
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The PDP governors had in a communique issued on March 23 stated that life was better under the PDP administrations from 1999 to 2015 than it is currently under the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The PDP governors, in the communiqué signed by 13 of them and read by Chairman of PDP Governors Forum, Aminu Tambuwal, expressed shock that in the face of statistics of complete failure in all ramifications, APC was still desirous of getting on the ballot in 2023.
They said Nigerians were undergoing terrible pain and hardship in all aspects of life and urged the citizens to reject the APC in the 2023 polls.
However, in a delayed reaction, the Presidency, in a statement titled “Issues from the PDP Fantasy Communique from Umuahia”, said the governors of the former ruling party were trying to cover up “the serial and criminal failures of the PDP’s long and damaging period in office.”
The statement read in part, “The rejected Peoples Democratic Party fantasy communiqué is a work of fiction by those who truly believe black is white and one plus one equals three. We cannot forget under PDP, the nation had an army full of phantom soldiers whose pay went to PDP politicians’ pockets while our under-resourced real soldiers died in the fight against terrorist insurgents and our international allies refused to supply Nigeria kit and military aid.
“We cannot ignore how PDP politicians sought – and continue to seek – to inflame ethnic and religious tensions by refusing to even proffer a solution to the herder-farmer clashes which became most prevalent under their misrule.”
The Presidency further accused the PDP of intentionally encouraging and exploiting the black market in currency exchange to convert ill-gotten gains to foreign currency and undermine the national currency,
It added that under the current administration, the national currency was more stable; the country had also achieved self-sufficiency in rice and fertilizer production as “greedy politicians and businessmen” have been prevented from hiding their money overseas, but building an economy here in Nigeria for all.
“We will always know how PDP politicians raided the NNPC, consistently failed to pay into the Federation Account and, in the last year of PDP misrule, $20bn dollars was simply found ‘missing’,” the statement added.
“Today with APC, funds from NNPC are directly and transparently used to fund social and health programmes – such as COVID-19 response, the construction of roads, bridges and rail, and equipping of hospitals to cope with new and existing challenges.
“And then there are those PDP leaders in attendance who signed the Communique. Who would trust such people with the running of our country? Who can believe a word these people say, as they looked outwardly stylish but harrowed by power-sharing and other troubles inwardly?
“These people, who play politics of division and hate, create communal disturbances, need to change. The Governors reeled out numbers on the economy, pretending as if the once-in-a-life COVID-19 pandemic, with its huge and devastating effect, disrupting global supply chains, uniformly battering the world economy, never happened.
“Covid-19 brought suffering and hardship to the doorstep of the entire global community-less maybe, of the affluent and pretentious PDP Governors-and to the credit of this administration, Nigeria’s economy recovered faster and stronger than the entire world ever imagined.
“Check the facts and leave the politics: What does the country get with this kind of gimmick?”
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