The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says the exposé by a former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has vindicated its stance that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has wrecked Nigeria.
Speaking last Saturday at a colloquium to mark his 60th birthday, Sanusi had said that all the economic gains made by Nigeria in the last 35 years were wiped out between 2014 and 2019.
“You look at the World Bank economic quality indicators and you will be shocked at what you are seeing. If we take Nigeria’s GDP per capita on a PPP (Purchasing Power Parity) basis, in 1980 it was $2,180 and by 2014, it was $3,099, which increased it by 50 per cent.
“Between 2014 and 2019, this number fell to $2,229. At this rate, by this year or next year, Nigeria’s GDP per capita on a PPP basis will be back to where it was in 1980.
“We have not moved. We wiped out in five years all the progress made in the preceding 35 years. That is the kind of conversation we should have which we are not having. And what are the key drivers of this: you’ve got rising population growth, slow GDP growth, higher rates of inflation, and devaluation of the currency,” he said.
PDP, in a statement by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, said Sanusi’s declaration directly reflects the position of the majority of Nigerians.
“The dire situation is now beyond politics. The PDP calls on more stakeholders to speak out irrespective of ethnicity, creed and political party affiliations so as to save the nation from a total collapse.
“The Buhari Presidency and the APC have, in the last six years, only succeeded in destroying every sector of our national life with their manifest incompetence, unbridled corruption, treasury looting, impunity, exclusionist and restrictive economic policies that have brought our nation to her knees.
“Nigerians can recall that the PDP handed over a robust economy, rated the largest hub in Africa and one of the fastest-growing in the world with Fitch B+ rating and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $574 billion to President Buhari and the APC in May 2015.
“Sadly, in the last six years, Buhari-led APC administration has reduced our productive sectors to complete wreckage with alarming 33.3 per cent unemployment and 17.38% inflation rates; over 60 million hitherto flourishing businesses folded up and the naira crashing from N167 to a dollar in 2015 to N512 under the APC corrupt and directionless watch.
“More depressing is that the corrupt APC administration has practically erased all the gained of the debt repayment achieved by the PDP, returned our nation to a beggar state and mortgaged the sovereignty of our country with reckless borrowing and accumulated N33.107 trillion.
“Life has become so unbearable in Nigeria under President Buhari and the APC, that more than 82.9 million Nigerians are no longer able to afford their daily meals and other necessities of life, with our nation now ranking as the poverty capital of the world and 98th out of 107 in Global Hunger Index.
“Today, under the APC, a litre of fuel which sold for N87 under the PDP now sells for N165, a bag of rice which sold for N8,000 now sells for N30,000, a measure of garri and beans which sold for N150 and N250 now sells for N600 and N800 respectively; a measure of maize and guinea corn which sold for about N150 now sells for N400, a kilo of meat which sold for about N800 now sells for about N2,300 while a 12.5 kg of cooking gas which sold for N3,000 now sells for over N6,000, all thanks to the incompetence and corruption of the Buhari-led APC administration.
“Furthermore, the compromises of the APC administration have led to the escalation of terrorist activities, banditry, kidnapping, killings, bloody agitations as well as other acts of violence that have turned our nation into a large funeral parlour, with no hope in sight.
“Indeed, this is not the way our nation should go. The PDP, therefore, urges more Nigerians to speak out to rescue our nation from this fast descent to a failed state,” the statement read.
