The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday described as mere fallacy the list of achievements the Muhammadu Buhari administration claimed to have recorded since it took over the rein of government in 2015.
The party said the achievements were cooked up and would not help Buhari and his party, the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2019 election.
This position was expressed on Thursday in a statement issued by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Kola Ologbodiyan.
The PDP said the Federal Government had refused to understand that the issues raised by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, for which he advised President Buhari not to seek re-election, were already trending in the minds of Nigerians and could not be dismissed with doctored reports and half truths.
The party also 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 PDP said it amounted 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, had come out of recession.
The party said contrary to government’s claim, there were 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.
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“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 statement reads in part.
The party stated too that it was ridiculous for the APC-led Federal Government to rely on an NBS report in giving an impression that the nation’s inflation rate had 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,” the party added.
The Presidency in reply to the claim that the present government had not solved the problem of hunger, poverty and insecurity among others listed a number of achievements.
In a statement by the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Presidency said among other things, it had been able to draw attention to agriculture in its diversification efforts.
It also said in terms of infrastructure, it had embarked on both rail and road constructions.
The Presidency also said the exit from recession was one of its achievements.
