“The Buhari Presidency by all objective accounts is the worst in Nigeria’s history in managing our diversity. Under APC’s 7 years rule, Nigerians no longer trust one another, ethnic and religious differences are not properly managed. All our fault lines are exposed and exacerbated.“
By Emma Ogbuehi
Governors elected on the platform of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Monday doubled down on their charge that the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency is the worst thing that happened to Nigeria.
They were reacting to a statement by Mallam Garba Shehu, Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, on Sunday, that bemoaned the “serial and criminal failures of the PDP’s long and damaging period in office, which the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and All Progressives Congress (APC) have strived these past seven years to repair.”
Garba Shehu’s statement was a reaction to the communiqué of the PDP Governors in their March 23, 2022 meeting in Umuahia, Abia State, where they decried the dire living conditions of Nigerians under the Buhari Presidency.
In his statement on Sunday, Shehu said PDP governors were delusional.
“The rejected Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) fantasy communiqué is a work of fiction by those who truly believe black is white and one plus one equals three,” he said before reeling out the alleged failures of PDP in the 16 years they were in power.
“We cannot forget under PDP, the nation had an army full of phantom soldiers whose pay went to PDP politicians’ pockets while our under-resourced real soldiers died in the fight against terrorist insurgents and our international allies refused to supply Nigeria kit and military aid.
“Today with the APC, the army is resourced, we have fighter jets from our partners, Boko Haram is being driven from every inch of Nigerian territory, and ISWA’s leader eliminated in a Nigerian airstrike.
“We cannot ignore how PDP politicians sought – and continue to seek – to inflame ethnic and religious tensions by refusing to even proffer a solution to the herder-farmer clashes which became most prevalent under their misrule.
“Today with APC in government, there are ranches on Federal land and in state land where there is the willingness to establish them. Clashes are reduced. Lives are saved, and livelihoods are enriched.
“We will always remember how PDP politicians intentionally encouraged and exploited the black market in currency exchange to convert ill-gotten gains to foreign currency and undermine our national currency, then spirited their funds abroad in their billions and into foreign bank accounts.
“Today with APC we support our national currency; we have achieved self-sufficiency in rice and fertilizer production; we refuse to allow greedy politicians and businessmen to hide their money overseas, and instead build an economy here in Nigeria for all.
“We will always know how PDP politicians raided the NNPC, consistently failed to pay into the Federation Account and, in the last year of PDP misrule, $20 billion dollars was simply found “missing”.
“Today with APC, funds from NNPC are directly and transparently used to fund social and health programmes – such as COVID-19 response, the construction of roads, bridges and rail, and equipping of hospitals to cope with new and existing challenges.”
Shehu admonished the PDP governors who he accused of playing politics of division and hate and creating communal disturbances, to change.
But in their riposte on Monday, the PDP governors said Garba Shehu’s response to their patriotic charge was infantile, ignorant, pedestrian, low quality, confused and rambling.
A statement by Hon. C.I.D. Maduabum, Director-General of the PDP Governors’ Forum, titled, “PDP Governors Forum rebuts Garba Shehu’s infantile response to PDP Governors’ fact-filled communique,” said the ruling party was “dazed by the sheer assemblage of facts, figures and evidence on the existential threat Nigeria is facing as a result of the APC misrule, with respect to the economy, security, stealing of Nigeria’s crude, etc. as contained in the communiqué.”
The PDP governors said all aspects of life in Nigeria are being systematically destroyed by the APC administration.
“Life has become short, brutish and valueless in Buhari’s Nigeria as insecurity ravages the land.”
Accusing the Buhari Presidency of being the worst in Nigeria’s history in managing the country’s diversity, PDP lamented that, “Under APC’s seven years rule, Nigerians no longer trust one another, ethnic and religious differences are not properly managed. All our fault lines are exposed and exacerbated.”
However, they assured that with the upcoming 2023 elections, hope was in the horizon as the PDP was poised to rescue and rebuild Nigeria after 2023.
Below is the statement by the PDP governors:
We are moved to respond to the infantile, ignorant, pedestrian, low quality, confused and rambling response of Garba Shehu, spokesman of the so-called Buhari Presidency, an amorphous entity, to the fact-filled patriotic, well thought out chronicle of the dire living conditions of Nigerians by the PDP Governors in their of March 23, 2022, for the need to set the records straight.
2. Garba Shehu described the communiqué as a fantasy, delusional and fictional. He even derided Nigerian armed forces as “phantom soldiers”. Perhaps he was dazed by the sheer assemblage of facts, figures and evidence on the existential threat Nigeria is facing as a result of the APC misrule, with respect to the economy, security, stealing of Nigeria’s crude, etc. as contained in the communiqué.
It was John Adams who said that “facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
The communiqué merely stated the facts.
3. The PDP Governors communiqué made a comparative sketch of Nigeria of 2015 under PDP and Nigeria of 2022 under APC. The communiqué reeled out the fact that in almost all sectors, things have gotten worse by over 1000%. This is reflected in prices of basic foodstuffs, unemployment rate, electricity prices, kerosene, diesel, fuel, aviation fuel and air ticket prices which have all gone through the roof. It reeled out figures on poverty, inflation, exchange rate, debt accumulation and corruption.
Indeed, all aspects of life in Nigeria are being systematically destroyed by the APC administration. Life has become short, brutish and valueless in Buhari’s Nigeria as insecurity ravages the land. But this is not the problem of Garba shehu, who is enveloped in the Presidential Villa, totally oblivious of the suffering and agony Nigerians are facing.
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4. The most disturbing aspect of misrule of the APC as chronicled in the communiqué is the petroleum sector.
The stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil and the connivance of NNPC in shortchanging other tiers of government, namely, States and Local Governments is simply mind bogging, if not outright criminal. Nigeria now produces 1.1million barrels of crude oil per day. It has capacity to produce 2.5million per day. It cannot even meet its OPEC quota of 1.8million per day. NNPC is a law unto itself. Nobody can call them to order to desist from the part of lawlessness and unconstitutional acts it has chosen to dwell in. Of course, President Buhari is the Minister of Petroleum Resources. Under his watch, the Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Sector is deteriorating. In an accountable government, he should have resigned his position as Minister of Petroleum, as a result of the cataclysmic failures in the sector.
5. It is even shocking that Garba Shehu admits that funds from NNPC are now directly used to fund social and health programmes, road construction etc, in an unconstitutional overreach. NNPC can spend the Federal Government’s share of the Federation Account as it pleases. It cannot spend money belonging to other tiers of government without their approval. NNPC cheats States and Local Governments. NNPC recklessly squanders money belonging to other tiers of government and has the audacity and impudence to pay Zero amount of money into the Federation Account.
6. Garba Shehu conveniently ignored the facts in the PDP Governors Communique that exposed the deduction of N788 billion for NNPC’s own chosen projects without recourse to the Federation Account; the deduction of N8.3 billion monthly for rehabilitation of refineries in Nigeria that do not work; the scandal called petroleum subsidy that gulps trillions of naira yearly without accountability and value for money. Between 2012 and 2021, N7.6 trillion has been withheld by NNPC from the Federal Account. Yet, Garba Shehu kept mum on these scandalous disclosures.
What did Garba Shehu say about 18 Federation Revenue Agencies that have refused to remit funds to the Federation Account in breach of the Constitution? Nothing! What an impunity? What a robbery? What a reckless and whimsical approach to governance!
The presumption is that we can talk as much as we want, since power resides in the Presidency, we can do nothing. But there will be a day for accounting. There will be a day of reckoning. When that day comes, arrogance of power will not avail the perpetrator of these serial acts of theft of Nigeria’s patrimony.
7. Garba Shehu accused PDP Governors of influencing ethnic and religious tensions. How does pointing out the deteriorating state of affairs in Nigeria inflame ethnic and religious tensions?
The Buhari Presidency by all objective accounts is the worst in Nigeria’s history in managing our diversity. Under APC’s 7 years rule, Nigerians no longer trust one another, ethnic and religious differences are not properly managed. All our fault lines are exposed and exacerbated.
8. Garba Shehu had the temerity to praise the military success under Buhari Presidency as compared to the PDP. That someone in today’s Nigeria can be this tone-deaf to the cheapening of life in Nigeria under the watch of the APC is to say the least, unfortunate.
The recent events in Kaduna has brought trauma and shame to Nigeria.
9. It is even more surprising that Garba Shehu mentioned the value of the Naira. What can we say, there is no strategy, no concerted effort to stabilise the value of the Naira. How can there be a plan when the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, is openly running for the office of President, spending billions in television and newspaper advertisement and other costly engagements. This is being done under the nose of Mr President. There can be no better evidence of government adrift, unconcerned and rudderless. Without care about how the economy runs. The sheer arrogance of being in such a sensitive office and running for President is quite outstanding.
10. The PDP Governors sounded alarm on the problems facing the country. The Government should wake up from its deep slumber. In any case there is hope in the horizon as PDP is poised to RESCUE AND REBUILD Nigeria after 2023.