The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday, January 25, 2018 challenged the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led federal government over alleged phantom achievements, saying the Voting Public will not be deceived by President Muhammadu Buhari during the 2019 elections.
The party, in an e-mailed statement to The Trent by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan pointed out that the APC government dished out misleading indices at a time it ought to be very sober for its failures.
According to the Statement, “The Federal government has refused to understand that the issues raised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, for which he advised President Buhari not to seek re-election, are already trending in the minds of Nigerians and cannot be dismissed with doctored reports and half truths.”
It described as highly unfortunate the resort to falsehood by the federal government while cleverly glossing over very serious issues of deteriorating economy, incessant killings, fuel crisis, corruption in the corridors of power and absolute failure of governance as raised by Nigerians.
The party said that it amounts to executive rascality for the APC federal government to use its Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, to falsely claim that the economy, which it wrecked, has come out of recession, when the glaring reality shows skyrocketing costs, soaring unemployment rate, unabating closure of businesses as well as accumulation of foreign and domestic debts.
“In its attempt to further hoodwink Nigerians, the federal government through the minister of information cleverly stated that the nation’s foreign reserves had risen to $40bn, while covering the fact presented by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) that our foreign debt has also escalated to $15.2bn under APC’s misrule.
“This is also a government whose domestic debt profile has scared many contractors off their sites and forcing millions of Nigerians into the labour market while development projects initiated by the PDP across the nation remains stagnated.
“The federal government also failed to inform Nigerians that other foreign financial instruments are being depleted, including the Excess Crude Account (ECA), from which they attempted to pilfer $1bn last year.
“It is ridiculous for the APC-led federal government to rely on an NBS report in giving an impression that the nation’s inflation rate has fallen at 15.37% while hiding the fact that inflation rate as at May 2015, when it took over rein of governance from the PDP, was 13.7%.
“This is even as the soaring price of commodities exposes the fact that 15.37% is not positive, as the APC government wants Nigerians to believe. The fact is that the APC is plunging the nation into deeper economic woes while trying to sugarcoat the issues with figures.
“Furthermore, the federal government attempted to delude Nigerians by claiming that the naira has become stable while glossing over the fact that it fell from about N165/1USD in 2015 to the current appalling N360/1USD,” the party said.
