The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said that it handed a better Nigeria to President Muhammadu Buhari after he won the 2015 general elections.
The party also insisted that all the gains it recorded while in charge of the governance of the country, have all been reversed by the All Progressives Congress-led, APC, administration.
However, President Buhari is yet to comment on the allegations against his government.
The PDP stated this on Saturday, August 20, while responding to a statement credited to the National Chairman of the APC, John Oyegun, that the PDP lacked the moral right to comment on the current state of the Nigerian economy, insisting that the party brought the current economic crisis upon the nation.
Earlier, Oyegun had accused the PDP-led administration of former President, Goodluck Jonathan, of not being able to account for N33 trillion it received as revenue.
Reacting, PDP in a statement said: “We read the statement by Chief John Oyegun, Chairman of APC, to the effect that PDP has no right to speak about President Buhari’s economic failures, and felt compelled to respond for record purposes.
“First of all, Section 39 CFRN guarantees all Nigerians the right to freedom of expression. Chief Oyegun and his party would do well to stop its many attempts at violating this right.
“Secondly, we will not follow Chief Oyegun’s path by responding with an invective rejoinder.
“However, as lawyers say, we will let the facts speak for themselves. For the avoidance of doubt, these are some of the economic indices inherited by the Buhari administration:
“a. No 1 destination for Foreign Investment in Nigeria with $395m in investments in Q1 2015 alone.
“b. Inflation at single digit interest rates for several years. It was 9.6% at the inception of the Buhari administration.
“c. A GDP that had grown at an average of 8% p/a in the last 10 years. Nigeria is currently experiencing its first negative GDP growth since the return of Democracy in 1999.
“d. A telecoms sector that has received more than $32b in investment since 2001.
“e. The largest economy in African valued at over $500b.
“f. An economy that was managing successfully dealing with its unemployment challenges
“g. An economy that had successfully increased per capita income from $299.4 in 1999 to $2640 in 2015.
“h. A stock market valued at N11.66t. The Nigerian Stock market has lost more than N1.3t of its value since the inception of the Buhari admin.
“i. An economy that had reduced its food import bill from well over N1t to N684.7 billion as at December 2013 & and was on target to meet its target of producing 20million MT of food annually.
“j. An economy that was diversifying by exponentially increasing non-oil revenue for the federation.
“k. A successfully unbundled power sector with an inductive environment for investment.
“l.An economy that had successfully reduced its personnel cost over the last 5 years.
“m.Several tools for combating corruption such as IPPIS, TSA, GIFMIS, EFCC & ICPC.
“In the past year, the APC-led FG has detained and publicly accused Col. Sambo Dasuki & members of our party for corruption. We find it surprising that the FG is asking for secret trials for the accused persons.
“We urge the FG to try them openly and in respect for the rule of law.
“We feel compelled to remind Chief Oyegun that not all monies generated from crude oil sales accrue to the Federal Government.
“Monies from crude sales accrue to Nigeria & its various JV partners. What accrues to Nigeria is then shared between the FG, States & LGAs subject to the deduction of operational expenses.”
