…INSISTS ALL SECTORS WORSE BY ‘1000 PERCENT’ IN NIGERIA
The Peoples Democratic Party’s Governors’ Forum has described the response by the President’s spokesman, Garba Shehu, to its communiqué of March 23, 2022, as an “infantile, ignorant, pedestrian, low quality, confused and rambling response”.
The Forum insisted that the communiqué reeled out by the Governors was an obvious fact that in almost all sectors, things have gotten worse by over 1000%.
PDP Governors while reacting to the comment credited to Garba Shehu, Presidential Spokesman “has no moral currency to fault their fact-filled patriotic, well- thought out chronicle of the dire living conditions of Nigerians, as spelt out by the PDP Governors in their communiqué of March 23, 2022.
Last week, Garba Shehu described the communiqué as a “fantasy, delusional and fictional.”
According to the Governors, “Shehu may have been 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 Forum’s Director-General, Hon. C.I.D. Maduabum, said in a statement on Monday that the communiqué obviously stated the facts stressing that the PDP Governors communiqué only made a comparative sketch of Nigeria of 2015 under PDP and Nigeria of 2022 under APC.
The statement berated the President’s spokesman and asked him to take a cursory statistics in prices of basic foodstuffs, unemployment rate, electricity prices, kerosene, diesel, fuel, aviation fuel and air ticket prices, which the Forum stated have skyrocketed.
“It reeled out figures on poverty, inflation, exchange rate, debt accumulation and corruption”, the statement reads.
The Governors accused the APC of systematically destroying the lives of the Nigerian people.
“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”, the Forum said.
The statement further indicted the APC, for allegedly stealing Nigeria’s crude oil with the connivance of NNPC and shortchanging other tiers of government, including the States and Local Governments.
The statement which described its allegation of oil theft as mind bogging, if not outright criminal, added that Nigeria now produces 1.1million barrels of crude oil per day but has the capacity to produce 2.5million per day.
They added that the production cannot even meet its OPEC quota of 1.8million per day, stressing that the NNPC is a law unto itself.
“Nobody can call them to order to desist from the part of lawlessness and the 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.”
The Forum accepted Garba Shehu’s admittance that funds from NNPC are now directly used to fund social and health programmes, road construction etc, in an unconstitutional overreach.
They said the NNPC could spend the Federal Government’s share of the Federation Account as it pleases, adding that it cannot spend money belonging to other tiers of government without their approval.
According to the Governors, NNPC, cheated the States and Local Governments and that the NNPC recklessly squandered money belonging to other tiers of government stating that it still shamelessly had the audacity and impudence to pay Zero amount of money into the Federation Account.
“Garba Shehu conveniently ignored the facts in the PDP Governors Communique that exposed the deduction of N788billion for NNPC’s own chosen projects without recourse to the Federation Account; the deduction of N8.3billion 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, N7.6T has been withheld by NNPC from the Federal Account. Yet, Garba Shehu kept mum on these scandalous disclosures”. The statement reads.
According to the Forum, “the failure of Garba Shehu to talk about the 18 Federation Revenue Agencies that have refused to remit funds to the Federation Account is not only a breach of the Constitution, but a criminality, impunity and robbery adding that such actions are reckless and whimsical approach to governance.
The statement stated that Garba Shehu accused PDP Governors of influencing ethnic and religious tensions, but added that the deteriorating state of affairs in Nigeria are the factors inflaming ethnic and religious tensions.
“The Buhari Presidency by all objective accounts is the worst in Nigerias 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.
“Garba Shehu had the temerity to praise the military success under Buhari 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 Director General of the Forum, Maduabum, described the recent Abuja- Kaduna train attack as traumatic and a shame to Nigeria.
He said it’s surprising that Garba Shehu mentioned the value of the Naira, and opined that APC government has no strategy, nor concerted effort to stabilise the value of the Naira.
He stressed that non stabilization of the value of Naira was explained by the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, who he said is openly running for the office of President, spending billions in television and newspaper advertisement and other costly engagements, forgetting his duties as Civil servant.
The Forum disclosed that the impunity of the CBN Governor is being perpetrated under the nose of Mr President. According to the Governors, such is an evidence of a drifting Government.
He said it’s a mark of unconcerned and rudderless attitude to work without care about how the economy runs adding that it’s a sheer arrogance of being in such a sensitive office and be running for President.
They described it as quite shocking and therefore behind the problems facing the country. The Forum therefore called on the Federal Government to wake up from its deep slumber.
The Forum pleaded with Nigerians to be hopeful as PDP, according to it, is poised to rescue and rebuild Nigeria after 2023.