From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), yesterday, berated President Buhari over his interview.
The party in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, accused President Buhari of making false performance claims and attempting to rationalise his failure in office.
Ologunagba said President Buhari should have seized the opportunity to show remorse, apologise to Nigerians for his monumental failure and national embarrassment that the APC government represents instead of trying to rationalise failures with falsehood and grandstanding about a successor.
He urged President Buhari to forget about producing a successor as Nigerians would resist any candidate put forward by him and the APC in the 2023 presidential poll.
“While we understand that lying is the standard gauge of performance of the APC, it is rather unfortunate that the president is also in that frame. It only reinforces the fact that nobody is immune to lying in the APC. Of course, he cannot extricate himself because lying is the official policy of APC, his party. In his ludicrous attempt to rationalise his failures in office, President Buhari falsely claimed that under the PDP, from 1999 to 2014, crude oil sold for an average of $100 per barrel, but collapsed to $37 per barrel when he and his APC assumed office.
“Such false claims flies in the face of hard fact as the records, which the president must have, clearly show that when the PDP took office in May 29, 1999 crude oil sold at $16.27 per barrel and at about $80.42 and $63.28 by November and December 2014 respectively.
“Under President Buhari and the APC, oil price has never fallen as low as $16 per barrel as recorded under the PDP, but started at $37 to $39.44 per barrel in 2016 and had continued to hover between $60 to $70 per barrel to date.
“It is on record that despite the low oil revenue when the PDP took over, it expanded the economy, paid off our foreign debts, revamped our productive sectors, provided conducive investment environment which encouraged massive foreign investments and handed over a $550 billion economy (largest in Africa and 26th globally) to President Buhari and the APC in 2015.
“Mr. President had no answers when, in the Channels TV interview, he was confronted with the facts that when he took over, the debt stock was N12 trillion but now N32 trillion and counting; that inflation, which was about nine per cent under the PDP is now over 15 per cent; that unemployment rate, which was about 8.9 per cent is now 33 per cent, that our naira which exchanged at about N197 to a dollar under the PDP is now over N500 and that the petrol price which was N87 in 2015 is now N165 per litre under the APC watch.”
Ologunagba said the mindset of Mr. President as exhibited in the Channels TV interview confirmed the fears of Nigerians that the APC does not believe in democratic practice and is determined to manipulate the 2023 election by all means.
