The Presidency on Sunday described as disgraceful the claim by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that Nigerians are fed up with President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and are yearning for the return of the PDP to power in 2023.
In a statement by Mallam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and Publicity, he said Nigeria will not welcome the PDP which is ‘the university of lies’ to power again.
Kola Ologbondiyan, the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP in an interview published by Daily Independent on December 30 had said having experienced both PDP and APC, Nigerians have realised that only the PDP has the interests of the country at heart.
However, Shehu in his response said:
“These days, so many people are saying so many things, indulging mostly in the abuses of others and as official spokespersons we make the deliberate choice of staying out for the most part”
“But it is hard to ignore the shameful and disgraceful claims made by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which is making the false claims that Nigerians are dissatisfied with the present and wished for the return to the years of locusts”.
“At the rate they are going, it is not far fetched to agree with another politician in describing the PDP as a “university of falsehood”, in which the bigger the lies their functionaries can tell, the higher in rank they are promoted to”.
“It is too soon for their evil records to be washed away or forgotten. They held onto the throne of power for 16 years fighting for their own happiness, not that of the majority of Nigerians. They turned the country into a nation of scams promoting corruption to an industrial scale, exploiting the country’s oil, mineral and land resources for selfish reasons.)”.
“PDP’s lasting legacy will be the catastrophe that was the power expansion programme in which USD 16 billion was taken from the treasury without a megawatt of electricity added to the grid system”.
“The Buhari-led administration is on the other hand fighting for the happiness of the majority of Nigerians, rebuilding a battered economy, putting in place long-delayed infrastructure and managing a novel Coronavirus pandemic in a very competent and impressive manner as to earn the commendation of the World Health Organization, WHO”.
In those their 16 years, a period in which a barrel of oil sold for as high as USD 140 dollars, they blew a golden opportunity to grow the economy to soaring heights.
They could have used the enormous earrings to increase power generation, modernise the rail and fix roads and bridges as the present administration is currently struggling, with lesser incomes to do.
About 800 road projects are currently ongoing in the six geopolitical zones of the country.
“The malaise of the PDP administration is manifested in the collapse of local food production, replaced by a daily average spending of USD 5 million in rice importation.
Today, not a kobo from the Central Bank of Nigeria is used to fund the importation of food. In effect, we eat what we grow. PDP broke the economy by killing industrialization.”
