By Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja
Former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar has said that the statement by the presidency condemning HSBC, the world’s largest bank, because it gave a verdict that President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election would spell doom for Nigeria’s economy has exposed the hypocrisy of the Buhari-led administration.
Atiku, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said it was comical and pathetic that the Buhari government’s statement called HSBC corrupt.
The Presidency had in its statement last week described HSBC as “a bank that soiled its hand with millions of US dollars yet-to-be-recovered Abacha loot”.
The former vice-president disclosed Sunday in Abuja in a statement issued by the Atiku Presidential Campaign Organisation.
According to him, “It is with amusement that we read the statement by the Buhari administration condemning HSBC, the world’s largest bank, simply because HSBC gave a verdict that Buhari’s re-election would spell doom for Nigeria’s economy.
“It is at once comical and pathetic that the Buhari government’s statement called HSBC corrupt. It seems they are unaware that some of the record N12 trillion worth of debt which the Buhari administration has saddled Nigeria with is actually funded from HSBC, which is the world’s largest bank.”
Atiku stated: “When they were taking their money, the ever begging Buhari administration did not know that HSBC was corrupt. It was after the HSBC told the truth about the Buhari government that they knew that the HSBC is keeping looted funds.
“They forgot that their principal, Muhammadu Buhari said: ‘Abacha did not steal’. So if Abacha did not steal, how could HSBC keep recovered Abacha loot? When you tell so many lies, you begin to contradict yourself.”
The former vice-president stressed that the fact remains that Nigeria under Buhari has been adjudged as the world headquarters for extreme poverty by the World Economic Forum and the World Poverty Clock as well as the British Prime Minister Theresa May.
He added that only last month, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) revealed that the country’s second quarter GDP growth rate was lower than the first quarter GDP growth, warning that another quarter of negative growth would see Nigeria witnessing a second recession under the Buhari administration.
Atiku said the same NBS published in December 2017 that 7.9 million Nigerians lost their jobs in 21 months under Buhari’s watch.
“These are the things that the government should be focused on and not to haul infantile insults at the world’s largest bank,” he said.
