We Left $2.07bn In Excess Crude Account, But Buhari Drained It To $631m – PDP
- Says ECA Now Buhari, APC’s 'Automated Teller Machine'
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the President Muhammadu Buhari government of depleting the Excess Crude Account (ECA) to $631 million from the $2.07 its administration allegedly left before handing over power to the President in 2015.
The PDP alleged that the administration of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) siphoned a whopping $1.68 billion from the ECA thereby inflicting suffering on Nigerians.
Speaking in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, on Thursday, the opposition party equally alleged that, “President Buhari is superintending over the surreptitious withdrawals from the ECA, without recourse to the statutory appropriation of the National Assembly, because funds are being frittered from the account to private purses of the cabal at his Presidency and corrupt All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders.”
The party claimed that, “the excuses being peddled by the Buhari administration on the depletion as hazy, muddle-up and cannot find basis under the due process of statutory legislative approvals.”
It alleged that the ECA has now been turned into personal “Automated Teller Machine (ATM)” of the President and his party, the APC.
“The PDP wonders why Mr. President is presiding over such impunity, if he is not drawing personal benefits from the obvious racket for which our ECA has been turned into APC’s Automated Teller Machine (ATM).
“Apparently realizing that they have been rejected by Nigerians ahead of the 2019 general elections, the APC and the Buhari Presidency now want to drain our treasury and as usual, blame it on past administration.
“Nigerians can recall that the PDP, which established the ECA as a buffer account to cushion the effect of any economic down turn, left $2.07 billion in the account only for the Buhari administration to drain it down to $631 million.
“The PDP condemns this manifest impunity by the Buhari Presidency and demands that no more withdrawals must be made from the account by this corrupt and inept administration.
“Finally, our party urges Nigerians to unite in condemnation of the depletion of our ECA by the Buhari administration, which has less than five months to leave the governance of our country for good,” said the opposition party.