The All Progressives Congress (APC) Sunday said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lacked any moral authority to caution or query President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
Specifically, the governing party said as at 2019, four states in the South-south under the opposition PDP received the highest allocation but “has nothing to show.”
The party named the states to include; Rivers, Delta, Akwa Ibom and Bayelsa states, which it said, all spent N682.49billion.
In a statement in Abuja by APC Deputy National Publicity Secretary Yekini Nabena, the APC said between 2006 and 2013, PDP governments spent over N5.42trillion on subsidy, which was 15.57% higher than the 2014 national budget of N4.69 trillion.
Nabena said: “In 2019, according to the Bureau of Statistics, the 36 states of the federation received the sum of N2.53 trillion as Federal Allocation. Of the 15 states under the control of the PDP, Delta State was the biggest recipient of federal allocation with a total sum of N214.4 billion. Akwa Ibom was second spot with a total sum of N169.79 billion gross allocations within the period. Rivers came third on the list with a gross allocation of N154.5 billion and Bayelsa came 4th with a whooping N143.8 billion in 2019. None of these states headed by the PDP governors have anything vital to show for it.
“It was also under the PDP government that the number of fuel importers rose from five in 2006 to 10 in 2007, 19 in 2008 and spiked up to 140 in 2011. This was one of the biggest causes of corruption because many firms only existed on paper and collected subsidies on fuel that never existed.
“To make matters worse, 60 million barrels of oil valued were stolen under the watch of PDP controlled NNPC between 2009 and 2012. The NNPC during the PDP years also failed to remit US$20 billion in oil revenues owed to the nation, which was confirmed by PwC and Deloitte investigative reports. The PDP has no genuine reason to cry wolf or display moral authority over subsidy under the Buhari administration.
“Apart from the fact that the subsidy regime and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have been so transparent under the Buhari led administration unlike under the previous PDP administrations when the same NNPC was accountable to no one to the extent that it owed the government up to the sum of N704 billion for gross violations of the subsidy scheme.”
While reacting to a statement credited to the PDP’s spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, attacking President Buhari’s October 1st message, the APC said the PDP publicist displayed his lack of understanding when he compared the minimum wage of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to buttress his points.
“He however forgot that Saudi Arabia pumps 12million barrels of crude oil a day as against Nigeria’s 1.8million, Saudi Arabia has a population of 35million people while Nigeria has a population of over 200million people, Saudi Arabia has 15% tax to GDP while Nigeria has 7.5% tax to GDP, Saudi Arabia has $750billion in their foreign reserves while Nigeria has only $36billion. Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan also failed the simple arithmetic in calculating the cost and standard of living in both countries.
“The fact that we are debating this clearly shows that the past administrations led by the PDP failed this land. Since you cannot build something on nothing, you’ve got to appreciate what the present leader is doing with little income,” the statement further said.
PDP cautions
However, the PDP has cautioned the ruling party against insulting its governors, saying they (governors) are the most performing.
In a statement by the PDP spokesman, Mr. Ologbondiyan, the party urged the APC to design a more constructive way of containing the manifest failures of its government at the federal and state levels instead of seeking to “use nonentities to attempt to drag down PDP performing governors and other well-meaning Nigerians”.
Ologbondiyan described as undisputable that governors elected on the PDP platform performed and were performing better, by all standards, than their APC counterparts.
“Nigerians across the country already know that the standard of living, infrastructural development, wealth creation, employment opportunities as well as growth in critical sectors including aviation, education, health, transportation power, energy, manufacturing, commerce are better in PDP states.
“Of course, no APC governor can point to any development project that can compete with the achievements of any of our governors in any sector of life,” the PDP said.
The statement further said: “Such feat is not by accident but by sheer ingenuity, hard work and accountability being exhibited by our governors in line with the manifesto of the PDP.
“In case the APC is not aware, it is instructive to remind them that their party and government has fallen too low in the esteem of Nigerians for it to seek a rebranding through impostors as spokespersons, to funnel lies, deception and distortions of facts in a fresh attempt to beguile Nigerians.
“It is incontrovertible that contrary to the lies of APC impostors, between 2006 and 2013, successive PDP administrations, effectively managed the resources of our nation and grew our economy to become one of the fastest-growing in the world as recorded by Fitch and the IMF.
“Perhaps the APC should be reminded that within this period, the PDP achieved the historical debt relief (of about $18 billion), which freed Nigeria from the suffocating shackles of huge external borrowings of the past.
“It is a fact that during this period, the PDP administrations reduced our nation’s budget deficits by 72%, stabilised our currency and overall economy to achieve the doubling of our GDP within four years from $55.65bn in 2003 to $114.36bn in 2006, as acknowledged by IMF database.
“This is in addition to improving our FDI from less than $700 million per annum in 1999 to $4.3 billion by 2007, which earned Nigeria a BB credit rating by Fitch.
“It is incontrovertible that life was better in our country under the PDP and that the purchasing power of Nigerians, in general, experienced its highest in our contemporary history under the PDP”.
