FG’s 2021 Performance Claims, a Litany of Lies, Says PDP

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has dismissed the All Progressives Congress (APC)-led government’s performance claims as reeled out by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, as a litany of lies and another celebration of falsehood by a failed administration.

In statement signed by the National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, the party maintained that the performance claims by the APC-led government could only be a product of delusions of grandeur; a joke of the year, as the word on the street where the real Nigerians are, is completely at variance with the fabricated lies and imaginary performance indices contained in the report.

According to PDP, “is it not unpardonable that instead of facing its failures to secure our nation, the APC-led government which is still habouring a self-confessed terrorism apologist, is celebrating the mass killings currently going on in our country by engaging in self-praise in the face of failure while terrorists continue to ravage our nation?”

On economy, the PDP said that the APC government had become so addicted to falsehood that it had forgotten that Nigerians are aware that the PDP government handed over a $550 billion economy – largest in Africa and 26th globally and a diversified economy to the APC in 2015.
According to him, “Our nation has become the poverty capital of the world due to the mismanagement, corruption and recklessness of the APC government.

“In 2015, Nigeria’s external debt was $7.3 billion. Today under the clueless APC government, in just over six years, the external debt has reached over $38 billion and counting, with no corresponding investment in the economy or infrastructure.

“Today, the poverty rate in Nigeria is 71 per cent as against 32 per cent when the APC government took over in 2015. Between January and September 2021, over $1.8 billion dollar was expended on debt services, yet the APC government can shamelessly claim to have performed in 2021,” he said.
“It is self-evident that only the APC gangsters can claim to have performed in the face of life discounting experiences of the ordinary Nigerians. Thankfully Nigerians now know them for who they are,” he added.

The PDP said that the APC government has nothing to say to the fact that under its watch, the naira has collapsed from N198 to a dollar handed over to it in 2015 to over N500 today; that the pump price of fuel has risen from N87 per liter in 2015 to N165 per liter today; that unemployment has risen from 7.3 per cent in 2015 to over 33 per cent today and that price of food items have so skyrocketed that millions of Nigerian families are no longer able to afford their daily meals and other basic necessities of life.

The main opposition party said that it was ludicrous that the APC government claimed to be fighting corruption when it has become the haven of compromised and corrupt politicians, adding, “Evidently, that is why it has no answer to reports of how APC leaders and their cronies stole over N25 trillion from various government agencies. It also explains why the APC government has failed to prosecute its officials and APC leaders openly indicted for corruption.”

On infrastructure, the PDP said that it was indeed appalling that the APC-led government could list projects that exist only on paper as achievements and even attempted to appropriate projects by PDP administrations. The PDP challenged the APC government to name one landmark project it conceptualised, commenced and completed in the last six years.

According to the PDP, “Instead of being guided by fact file of manifest failures, the APC is oblivious of the pains and tears that their almost seven years of proven disappointment have inflicted on Nigerians. For this insensitivity, the APC should await the inevitable verdict from Nigerians in the 2023 elections.”