Oct 1 Speech: Again, APC Attacks PDP For Ridiculing Buhari’s Administration

The All Progressives Congress (APC) on Sunday hit back at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over its earlier attack on President Muhammadu Buhari’s independence anniversary speech.

This is the second time the ruling party is taking a swipe at the PDP over the attack on Buhari. It had on Friday last week berated the PDP, saying that the party acted irresponsibly and needed prayer warriors to deliver it.

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The APC said the PDP did not have any moral authority to caution or query Buhari’s administration.

Recall that PDP had last week attacked Buhari, describing the economic assertions in the president’s speech as a “huge slap on the sensibilities of Nigerians.”

The attack on the president’s speech might have been informed by his justification of the increase in pump price of petrol in the country. Buhai had also compared the petrol price in Nigeria with that of Saudi Arabia, which sells for N168 per litre.

A litre of petrol in Nigeria costs N162.

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But, in a statement issued by its Deputy National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, the APC said “It is baffling that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has to be told it does not have any moral authority to caution or query the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.”

Nabena claimed that the subsidy regime and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had been so transparent under the Buhari administration.

He added that this was unlike the previous PDP administrations when the same NNPC was accountable to no one to the extent that it owed the government up to N704billion for gross violations of the subsidy scheme.

He also alleged that between 2006 and 2013, PDP governments spent over N5.42 trillion on subsidy, which was 15.57% higher than the 2014 national budget of N4.69 tn.

According to him, it was also under the PDP government that the number of fuel importers rose from 5 in 2006 to 10 in 2007, 19 in 2008 and spiked up to 140 in 2011.

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He stressed that this was one of the biggest causes of corruption “because many firms only existed on paper and collected subsidies on fuel that never existed.”

The APC spokesman said: “To make matters worse, 60 million barrels of oil valued was stolen under the watch of PDP controlled NNPC between 2009 and 2012. The NNPC during the PDP years also failed to remit US$20 billion in oil revenues owed to the nation, which was confirmed by PwC and Deloitte investigative reports. The PDP has no genuine reason to cry wolf or display moral authority over subsidy under the Buhari administration.

“The PDP spokesman in naively attacking the president, claimed the increase of fuel pump price and President Buhari’s attempt to justify the increase of fuel price in Nigeria by comparing it to the N168 per liter cost in Saudi Arabia was a morbid joke. He further displayed his lack of understanding when he compared the minimum wage of Saudi Arabia and Egypt to buttress his mundane points.

“He however, forgot that Saudi Arabia pumps 12million barrels of crude oil a day as against Nigeria’s 1.8million, Saudi Arabia has a population of 35million people while Nigeria has a population of over 200million people, Saudi Arabia has 15% tax to GDP while Nigeria has 7.5% tax to GDP, Saudi Arabia has $750billion in their foreign reserves while Nigeria has only $36billion. Mr Kola Ologbondiyan also failed the simple arithmetic in calculating the cost and standard of living in both countries.

“In 2019 according to the Bureau of Statistics, the 36 states of the federation received the sum of N2.53 trillion as Federal Allocation. Of the 15 states under the control of the PDP, Delta State was the biggest recipient of federal allocation with a total sum of N214.4 billion. Akwa Ibom was second spot with a total sum of N169.79 billion gross allocations within the period. Rivers came third on the list with a gross allocation of N154.5 billion and Bayelsa came 4th with a whooping N143.8 billion in 2019. None of these states headed by the PDP governors have anything vital to show for it.

“The fact that we are debating this clearly shows that the past administrations led by the PDP failed this land. Since you cannot build something on nothing, you’ve got to appreciate what the present leader is doing with little income.”

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