Politics
PDP Roasts APC For Comparing Obasanjo/Atiku’s Tenure With Buhari Govt
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has berated the All Progressives Congress (APC) for comparing the ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure with that of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Naija News reported earlier that the APC had responded to the submission by former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar on the need to diversify Nigeria’s economy.
The APC in its response noted that the submissions by Atiku were noted and appreciated but then hit back at him for being too sanctimonious.
It will be recalled Atiku in an opinion article titled ‘how to pull Nigeria from the brink,’ urged the federal government of Nigeria led by Buhari to urgently look into diversifying the country’s economy in the face of dwindling oil revenues.
The APC in its reaction to the article in a statement on Saturday said Atiku had the opportunity to set Nigeria on the path to economic restructuring but failed to do it right.
“While we appreciate that Atiku Abubakar is keying into this administration’s policy direction regarding diversification, we are only worried that it took him 13 years after leaving office to realise that the Government under which he served as the Vice President was short-sighted for its failure to faithfully diversify the Nigerian economy.
“Not to be confused, Atiku Abubakar had eight years as a powerful Vice President and Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation with vantage opportunity to lead the country away from its dependence on oil. How Nigeria got worse even when international oil prices were stable and high are matters Atiku Abubakar may still need to address in future,” the APC said.
Reacting in a statement on Sunday signed by its spokesperson, Kola Ogbondiyan, the PDP said the ruling APC lacks the parameter to compare both administrations.
In the statement titled: “You Lack Parameters to Compare Obasanjo/Atiku Tenure with Buhari’s”, the PDP stated that it would not allow the APC to distract it from finding a solution to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to a knee-jerk reaction by the dysfunctional APC to the well-received suggestions by former Vice President and PDP’s candidate in the 2019 Presidential election, Atiku, on how to revamp our ailing economy.
“While the PDP had chosen not to allow the fizzling APC to distract us from our focus, particularly in finding solutions for the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot keep quiet and allow those who had reversed all our national gains in a space of five years, to continue to engage in distortions, outright lies and appropriation of projects executed by the PDP to continually spit on the memories of Nigerians.
“It is sad that a patriotic and non-partisan rescue effort by Atiku was met with insults, animus and aspersions by an administration under which Nigeria is collapsing economically, just because it lacks the required competence and brilliance for modern governance.
“This is a government under which our nation has become the poverty capital of the world; our foreign debts have quintupled from $7 billion in 2015 to $30 billion today; our once highly rated banking sector is now shedding its workforce.”