The Presidency has warned Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose to stop making unsubstantiated allegations pertaining to the running of the economy by the federal Government.
Specifically, the Presidency said Fayose’s comment on the September Federal allocation of N389 billion was reckless and typical of his past unguarded outbursts.
The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, who sounded the Presidency’s warning, was reacting to remarks made by the governor at the recent graduation ceremony of College of Education, Ikere-Ekiti, in which he asked President Muhammadu Buhari to address Nigerians on the state of the economy.
Specifically, Fayose had accused the Buhari administration of paying out the lowest-ever federally distributed allocations to the three tiers of government.
But Garba Shehu described Fayose’s assertion as one that was characteristic of his past outbursts, saying “the governor didn’t get his facts correct.”
According to the presidential spokesman, records of such past allocations showed “that the lowest-ever allocation to the three tiers was paid by the PDP-led Goodluck Jonathan administration.”
Cautioning the Ekiti State chief executive to be mindful of his utterances, Shehu said: “Governor Fayose needs to be advised to desist from spreading falsehood against the person and government of President Muahmmadu Buhari as has become characteristic of him. He needs to get his facts right before making accusations of the nature he makes.
“The governor equally knows full well that his party in government ruined the economy to the extent that workers in 27 states went for several months without salary. This crisis situation has now been reversed in nearly all the states. Governor Fayose is himself in line for the collection of his state’s bailout.
“Under the PDP federal government, ministries were not given overhead costs for five months while the capital budget was unpaid for six months in the run-up to the exit of the PDP administration. Is there anyone in that party with a moral justification to criticise the Buhari administration which is working hard to clean up the mess they (PDP) left behind?”
Backing up his position with statistics, Shehu who stated that the lowest monthly allocation in the last 12 months, amounting to N358 billion, was distributed in May, this year under the PDP government, adding that the figure rose to N380 billion in June before it fell to N373 billion in October.
He continued: “Records obtained from Ministry of Finance show that the decline in federally collected revenues shared by the three tiers didn’t just set in but had become clearly manifest under the PDP administration. In February, N480 billion was distributed. In March it was N459bn; April, N385bn; May, N357bn; June N389bn, and July, N526bn. In August, N499bn was paid out; September, N412bn and N374 in October.”
“As most Nigerians are aware, this decline in revenue has chiefly been caused by the drastic fall in oil prices, compounded by the free-wheeling crude oil theft which was allowed to thrive under the PDP administration in which Governor Fayose was a leading character.”
The presidential spokesman further noted that the low allocation under the present administration was a temporary phase that would soon go away “as the various measures put in place by the government to block leakages in revenue generation come to fruition.”
On how the problem of declining allocation would be addressed, Shehu said: “Non-oil revenue is expected to rise substantially with the effective take-off of the Treasury Single Account (TSA). With this in place, government now has a framework for understanding the picture of accruable revenues in ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs). They will no longer tax and spend, but do so only in line with their budgets.
“Reforms and the close monitoring in the Federal Inland Revenue Service and the Customs are all expected to shoot up federally collected revenues and would, in a short period from now, start to move the country from over-reliance on oil as promised by the President.”
He noted that, to achieve all these, the President did not need the unnecessary heckling by Fayose.
“Neither is the country helped in any way by leaders peddling falsehood,” he added.
Presidency replies PDP: Buhari’s comments’re not eroding investors’ confidence
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said comments of President Muhammadu Buhari in the last six months were scaring away foreign and domestic investors from Nigeria.
The party expressed worry that, as the father of the nation, Buhari was supposed to make efforts to harness resources and grow the economy rather than “demarket” the country by making blanket negative comments about the citizens and depicting the country as an unfriendly environment.
PDP, in a statement by its spokesman, Olisa Metuh, lamented that the President was in the habit of making those damaging comments at international fora with potential investors in attendance.
PDP’s statement comes barely a day after President Buhari’s return from a trip to India.
The president had, in the last six months, embarked on several foreign trips seeking the cooperation of countries to help fight insurgency and to invest in Nigeria.
Metuh said: “Whereas we have restated our total support for the war against corruption, we insist that Mr. President’s unceasing blanket negative labeling of citizens, in a country where millions of honest and hardworking individuals/firms are genuinely contributing daily to the development effort, is indeed a disservice and injurious to the nation and its people.
“Indeed, this is not the way to go, Nigeria is a country blessed with abundant human and natural resources. What we need at the moment is a serious, innovative and practical approach with the capacity to harness the resources and create wealth for the benefit of all, instead of an apparently laid-back scapegoat tactics with outworn excuses and unhelpful comments.”
Shut up, stop distracting Buhari – Presidency tells PDP
Following reports by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that President Muhammadu Buhari’s incessant statements about corruption in Nigeria is scaring foreign investors away from the country, the Presidency has told PDP to shut up and stop distracting the President.
PDP National Publicity Secretary Olisa Metuh accused President Buhari of only succeeding in discouraging foreign investors with his continued misrepresentation of the country as a business-unfriendly environment where most of the citizens are dishonest and untrustworthy.
But Mr Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media, stressed that the President will not, in the guise of “marketing” the country, refrain from telling Nigerians and the world the emerging truths about the abject state which years of plundering by PDP leadership had left the Nigerian treasury and economy.
Adesina said, “We restate – for the umpteenth time to Mr. Metuh and his ilk – that their attempts to distract President Buhari from the job he has been elected to do will fail.”
He asserted that President Buhari would remain true to the values of honesty, integrity, incorruptibility and plain-speaking which endeared him to Nigerians and made them prefer his leadership to that of a lying and deceptive PDP administration.
“President Buhari will not in the name of “marketing” or “attracting” investors follow in the footsteps of the ousted PDP Administration and its discredited officials who shamelessly lied to Nigerians and the world about the buoyancy and vibrancy of an economy they had bled dry for personal gain, when it was very obvious to the discerning that the Nigerian economy was headed for serious trouble,” Adesina said.
The Presidency lamented that instead of showing remorse for the harm done to the nation by PDP and giving genuine support to President Buhari’s efforts to salvage and revamp the national economy, Metuh persists in a vain attempt to remain relevant on the national stage by unjustly denigrating the President who continues to strive to alleviate and reverse the harm done to the nation by PDP’s misrule and corruption.
“Mr. Metuh’s antics are futile. President Buhari cannot be distracted by a broken record. If the PDP spokesman ever has serious matters to bring to our attention, we will be prepared to listen,” Adesina said.
-Leadership