Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
The vice presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party and former governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, on Thursday, called on Nigerians to secure the future of the country by voting out President Muhammadu Buhari in the forthcoming election.
He made the call at the town hall meeting held with the members of PDP in Benin City.
Obi said Nigerians can no longer continue with the current economic hardship in the country and should the present administration continue to hold sway to power in the next four years, there is the likelihood that there may not be a country called Nigeria again
“They promised us that fuel will be N40, they promised us that they are going to eliminate Boko Haram and they promised us that our children will have jobs that they are going to create three million jobs per annum.
“All we hear every day is 16 years of PDP ruined the country so you hired them to come and make things right.
“They came to give you people N10,000 after three years. N10,000 cannot buy a bag of rice. What kind of business can you do with N10,000 even a bag of crayfish is more than N10,000 and why wait for three years before they bring it.
“What we are doing is that this business must change and we cannot continue this way. Another four years of this way, there will be no country called Nigeria,” he said.
READ ALSO: Why CCT vowed not to comply with orders — Olanipekun
The vice presidential candidate alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress has a penchant for borrowing and such has plunged the country into more debt than they alleged the Peoples Democratic Party did in 16 years
“Even Central Bank yesterday warned about our borrowing. In 2008, Nigeria paid up its debt. We were not owing anybody.
“We paid 12 billion and the world wrote off for us over 18 billion. So we were debt free. By December 2018, we were owing N22.7 trillion about $80 billion and if you ask them about the money, they will tell you it is being used for a capital vote. Where is the capital vote? Where do they put the money?
“This government borrowed in two years (2016 and 20170 more than what the PDP borrowed in 16 years.
“For the whole 16 years, the total debt borrowed in this country was seven trillion, five hundred and seventy-five billion and in two years, they borrowed seven billion, four hundred and eighty million naira that was the same thing that was borrowed in 16 years; they borrowed it in two years and they will tell you it is for capital projects but go and watch the number of capital projects in 2016, it was N1.2b, N1.2trillion and in 2017, it was N1.5trillion.
“So, what is different is about N5trillion because they say it is for capital projects and nobody is asking this question all you hear now is people going about telling lies instead of telling the truth,” he said.
Obi further appealed to Nigerians to see the forthcoming elections as a way of securing the country by casting
their votes for them in the forthcoming elections, adding that the current administration cannot guarantee their safety had failed to secure their states from various attacks and insecurity.