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Ahead of the 2019 general election, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has criticised the All Progressive Congress, APC for making ‘frivolous’ claims of achievements.
The party said it is amazed at some claims credited to ”certain leaders of the ruling party” who said the ”party (APC) has cleared PDP’s mess.”
The position of the former ruling party was conveyed in a press statement issued on its behalf by the party’s national publicity secretary, Dayo Adeyeye.
After being in power for 16 years, the PDP in 2015 lost the presidential election to the APC.
The APC had been reported to have said that President Muhammadu Buhari ”will conveniently win a second term in office in 2019 because of his achievements in office which will compel Nigerians to vote for him again.”
The PDP, however, shares a contrary view.
”It is very obvious that the APC is still stuck in its serial lies and blame game against the PDP since it assumed power two years ago. The APC should be told that its unwavering deception and manipulation against Nigerians can be likened to HL Mencken’s “a lie has attained the dignity of age.” Nigerians are already embittered and will not have a repeat of it in 2019 and we join them to say it is enough!
“In one of the APC leaders’ haughty and empty boast, they (he) referred to Nigerian economy as decadent before the APC took over from the PDP in 2015 among other narrow-minded claims they made.
“Before we proceed, we want to state emphatically that the APC’s abysmal failure will indeed be the PDP’s scoring points in 2019 given that the remaining one year plus will make no difference to the APC incompetence and crass ineptitude in political, democratic and public governance.
“We have deemed it fit to continue reminding Nigeria’s of our unparalleled achievements while in governance mainly, that of the immediate past administration of H.E Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR.
“We wish to specifically note one other outrageous claims by these leaders, that the APC has recorded huge success in the ‘agricultural sector’- in crops such as; rice, other grains and for tubers like cassava and yam by next year. Indeed, this is absurd and a loquacious claim as there is no evidence, except increased hunger and frustrations on Nigeria’s daily.”
The PDP said it has outstanding achievements to show for its years in power.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP did surpass the APC’s imaginations of growth in the agricultural sector, especially in rice and cassava production that they made a boast of.
“The PDP administration hinged the transformation of the agricultural sector on two major policy strategies: to eliminate corruption in the sector and strengthening of its institutions. We make bold to state that these policy actions resulted in giant strides for the rice crop where local production increased with evidence of rice brands like, Ebony, Ashi, Mikap, etc. They sold in Nigerian markets thereby, reducing importation of rice to the barest minimum. A bag of rice sold for N8,000 while under this APC, its cost is almost 3 times more. Also, 13 new private sector mills were established to buy and process up to 240 metric tons of rice.
“We sponsored 50 young Nigerian youth on a 5-month training programme on rice production to Kenya and enforced strict measures on importers of rice to encourage local production. In this sector, we provided job opportunities especially, for teeming youth but now under the APC, there are about 5 million jobs lost; the sector generated foreign exchange and diversified the economy; it created the E-wallet system that stopped corruption in fertilizer distribution; and achieved a reduction of the national food import bill among many other positive interventions.”
The party also enumerated other ‘achievements’ which it said included the revamping of the Nigerian economy via the attraction of investors into critical sectors of the economy. It said the APC’s inability to curb growing insurrection in parts of the country shows it as inept.
“While we wait for the ‘guzzling’ of this false party, the APC in 2019, we want to pray it shows mercy on Nigerians by achieving at least 20 per cent of its jumbo promises which are too numerous to mention. We wish to reiterate that the so called ‘corruption war’ is already a failure as well as other facets of governance. Like it promised to defeat Bolo Harran in two months but instead, the spate of bombings increased coupled with new wave of attacks on Nigerians, the herdsmen, agitations, etc.
“However, we will continue to salute the courage and sacrifices of the country’s military commands as they contend with the deadly Boko Haram group. What about making N1 equal to $1? The APC has ‘beaten the Naira’s face flat on the ground.’ Also, we pray it (APC) pays the N5,000 it promised to unemployed youths, stop medical tourism abroad. The records are visible and accessible to corroborate our claims,” the party said.
The APC is yet to react to the comments by the opposition party.
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