From Adetutu Folasade-Koyi, Abuja
The Federal Government has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of frittering away $320 billion crude oil revenue when it was in power.
The government said the PDP government earned $320 billion from crude oil sales during its last six years, but could not account for the revenue when compared with the swathe of infrastructure put in place across the country from just $150 billion revenue in the same time span of the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Minister of Transportation, Mu’azu Jaji Sambo, stated this, yesterday, in Abuja at the second edition of the PMB administration 2015-2023 scorecard.
“…This administration should be given credit when it is time to give it credit. Now, let’s look at income. The last six years of the PDP administration netted about $320 billion from crude oil sales. The first six years of this administration netted just $150 billion, which is about 47 per cent of only of what the PDP garnered in the same period. Yet, look at what they have done! Even critics of the PMB administration would say, ‘yes, I may not like your face, but you did wonders for this country.”
Sambo also announced that the suspended Abuja-Kaduna rail service would resume before the end of this month.
He said investments had been made in surveillance technology that allowed the president, transport minister, DSS and other security agencies monitor what happens along the rail tracts.
“The Abuja/Kaduna rail attack was a very sad one and, by the grace of God, we shall not witness anything like that again. We have deliberately taken steps to mitigate that and lessons have been learned, and these lessons are safety, security, surveillance, constant monitoring 24/7 round the clock. And this month of November, we shall resume that service,” he said.
Sambo also explained that Nigeria was building a rail line to Maradi, the Republic of Niger to facilitate trade with other African and European countries.
On reports that the South East was deliberately excluded from getting a standard gauge rail, he said: “With regards to the narrow gauge line, I don’t know of a narrow gauge that is specific to the southern part of the country. The narrow baggie runs from Maiduguri, Borno State all the way through Jos, Plateau State up to Port Harcourt, Rivers State. First of all, I would like to let you know that Maiduguri is not in the South East. Jos is not in the South East. Several other cities and towns through which this line passes are not in the South East. So, there’s no hidden agenda to restrict the South East from any narrow gauge…That is one part of the country that has benefitted the most under Buhari. The Second Niger Bridge is there, it had defied all previous governments. It is going to be commissioned by president Buhari before the end of this year,” Sambo said.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, slammed the PDP for being in denial about Buhari’s achievements since 2015.
He accused the opposition party of deliberately misinforming Nigerians that the administration has no achievement to campaign with, in the rundown to the 2023 general election.
The minister said it was an absurdity and cruel irony for the PDP to ignore Buhari’s administration’s achievements when the opposition party couldn’t deliver key infrastructural projects in a time of plenty.