The Presidency has berated the main opposition party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), for allegedly misrepresenting facts about the country’s economic and sociopolitical history.
Reacting to a recent communiqué issued by PDP Governors’ Forum on the state of affairs across the country, the Presidency noted that the opposition party’s leaders played the ostrich by attempting to indict President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in its handling of the economy, while leaving a critical element, like the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The PDP governors recently met in Umuobiakwa community of Abia State where it dissected, among other things, national issues, and issued a communiqué, which indicted the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration over the state of the economy, security, infrastructure, among others.
The opposition governors concluded that the ruling party is not fit to run the country any further.
But in a statement in Abuja by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, the Presidency said: “The rejected PDP’s fantasy communiqué is a work of fiction by those who truly believe black is white and one plus one equals three.
“This statement of the delusional seeks to cover up the serial and criminal failures of the PDP’s long and damaging period in office, which the Muhammadu Buhari administration and APC have striven these past seven years to repair.
“We cannot forget that under the 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.
“Today with the APC, the army is resourced, we have fighter jets from our partners, Boko Haram is being driven from every inch of Nigerian territory, and ISWAP’s leader eliminated in a Nigerian airstrike.”
“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.
“Today with APC in government, there are ranches on Federal land and in state land where there is the willingness to establish them. Clashes are reduced. Lives are saved, and livelihoods are enriched.
“We will always remember how PDP politicians intentionally encouraged and exploited the black market in currency exchange to convert ill-gotten gains to foreign currency and undermine our national currency, then spirited their funds abroad in their billions and into foreign bank accounts.
“Today with APC, we support our national currency; we have achieved self-sufficiency in rice and fertiliser production; we refuse to allow greedy politicians and businessmen to hide their money overseas, and instead build an economy here in Nigeria for all.
“We will always know how PDP politicians raided the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), consistently failed to pay into the Federation Account and, in the last year of PDP misrule, $20 billion was simply found ‘missing’.
“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.”
The Presidency also carpeted the PDP governors, who were signatories to the communiqué, saying their antecedents make them unfit for the trust of Nigerians.
It said they have for long profited from playing divisive politics, setting the nation up in flames by promoting hate.
