Your Failure Necessitated N100Bn Bond, Oyo PDP Tells APC

Your Failure Necessitated N100Bn Bond, Oyo PDP Tells APC

Kemi Olaitan in Ibadan

The Oyo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), saturday said that the failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and some of its stalwarts forced the state government to secure a N100 billion bond to execute development projects.

In a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Akeem Olatunji, PDP said the decision of the state government to secure the bond was a very strategic and commendable one which would open up Ibadan, the state capital, for real investments that would lead to economic growth.
The statement said under the immediate past government, the APC left the state’s critical infrastructures in such deplorable state with a humongous debt profile of over N150 billion.

It said the debt was secured at a time when foreign exchange was around N170 to $1 compared with the current situation when over N400 exchanges for $1 leaving the present administration under Governor Seyi Makinde, with no choice than to proactively seek for ways to source for funds to execute its capital projects.

It berated the APC for attempting “to misinform the residents with a derailing narrative with a view to inciting the people against the government.”

It explained that if the APC had expended all monies it got for the development of the state’s critical infrastructures which could have opened up the state for mega investments, the present government would not be enmeshed in such economic rot that would compel it to seek for the bond.

It said the practice of outsourcing loans, bonds and other financial instruments “to develop critical infrastructures in case of paucity of funds is not peculiar to the state.”

It said the western nations engaged in such to create the enablement in order to be able to execute capital projects, stressing that what such funds are tied to and the political will to deliver is what matters.

The party described the APC in the state as an association of jesters who are best at criticizing others hypocritically while hiding its monumental failures.

It wondered why the opposition was silent when Ogun State House of Assembly recently approved N250 billion loans for the state governor even when details of the loan remains shrouded in secrecy but would jump ahead of itself to castigate what economic experts are commending in Oyo State.

It added that the federal government of Nigeria under APC-led government has set the country on autopilot since it has lost all sense of leadership and direction after plunging the nation into a near N30 trillion debt in less than six years with nothing to show for it, stressing that it will only be wise for APC and its stalwarts to bury their heads in shame and stop trying futile efforts to derail a performing governor.

It explained that the Ibadan circular road, Ibadan Dry Port project, proposed Iseyin/ Ogbomoso road, expansion of Airport, Airport road/Ajia road/Amuloko road and other projects would benefit from the N100 billion bond.

It added that the projects “are very strategic to drive the state internally generated revenue upward because there are no infrastructures that can generate the projected revenue if those projects are not done urgently.

“The PDP is in full support of the governor’s move as the state can no longer survive on the meagre federal allocation to grow. We advise the APC to provide a better and sound alternative to its criticism rather than making a mockery of itself as lacking in effective economic management before the people who are still healing from the eight years untold suffering imposed on them by the APC-led government.”

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