The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked President Muhammadu Buhari to restore Nigeria’s economy or step down.
The party stated this while reacting to the lingering economic crisis rocking the country.
Speaking through Prince Dayo Adeyeye, its spokesperson and a member of the party’s National Caretaker Committee in Abuja, PDP said: “For the record, recession is characterised as a period of negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters, given rise to high rate of unemployment, fall in output, increase in government borrowing, etc.
“Following this understanding, Nigeria’s economy is already near depression. The crass ineptitude and lukewarm-attitude of this All Progressives Congress government is no longer tolerable, and therefore, we are calling on President Buhari and his team to return Nigeria to its state of booming economy before they assumed office in May, 2015, and then quit immediately to allow other capable leaders revive our ailing economy.”
The opposition party said that the legacies of past administrations are visible to Nigerians, calling on the Buhari-led All Progressive Congress (APC) administration to concentrate on creating enabling opportunities.
PDP said, “What Nigerians want from this administration are positive results and not resorting to throwing tantrums on the PDP at every given opportunity. Our call for the President to return the country to how he met it in 2015 is justified on the following grounds.
“In 2015 when the President came to power, a bag of rice was selling at N7,000, but now, it is above N20,000; a ‘mudu’ of beans was N150 then and now, it is N500; one US dollar was then trading for N197 but now it is over N400.
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“Also, a litre of fuel was N87 but now is N145; cost of transportation and other services had skyrocketed. Given our observations since the inception of this government, they have nothing to offer and as such, quitting will be a solution because nobody can give what he/she does not have. The APC has failed.
“When this government came to power in May 2015 riding on the achievements of the previous PDP administration, President Buhari’s handlers and his party, the APC, claimed it was his ‘body language’ that brought some positive changes the country was witnessing at that time.
“So, we want to know what are the results of the so-called ‘body language. He can even quit right away for a more experienced team to take over.”
Appealing to members of his party and other well-meaning Nigerians to keep praying to God to intervene so that the country would quickly recover from the ailing economy, Adeyeye said former president Jonathan before the end of his administration announced the contract award of three refineries.
“On May 13, 2010, the Jonathan administration announced the contract award of three refineries which he called the greenfield refinery. One was to be located in Bayelsa, one in Kogi and one in Lagos, if those refineries were constructed, the billions of naira we are losing through vandalism of our pipelines would not be the order of the day.
“If his wife, Patience, was wise enough to use the money she used to build a hotel in Yenagoa for the refinery, we wouldn’t have been where we are today.
“The Nigerian people know where the rain started beating us. As the Petroleum Task Force chairman, Buhari, with the meager resources at his disposal, was able to build more kilometres of roads than the PDP did in 16 years, even though they had more money.
“Are they saying Nigeria should return to the years where Boko Haram held all of us to ransom and the looting of the public treasury was the order of the day?”
