By Seyi Odewale
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governors’ Forum yesterday said the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration of President Muhammadu Buhari is systematically destroying all aspects of life in Nigeria, adding that life has become short, brutish, and valueless in Buhari’s Nigeria as insecurity ravages the land.
The governors, while responding to a statement credited to the Senior Special Assistant to the President, Garba Shehu, who described the PDP’s Governors’ Forum’s recent communiqué as a fantasy, delusional and fictional, said the president’s spokesman was being infantile, ignorant, pedestrian, low quality, confused and rambling in his response to the communique.
They added that Shehu derided Nigerian armed forces by describing them as “phantom soldiers”.
According to them, Shehu was perhaps dazed by the sheer assemblage of facts, figures, and evidence on the existential threat Nigeria is facing as a result of the APC misrule, concerning the economy, security, stealing of Nigeria’s crude, etc. as contained in the communiqué.
In a statement by the Forum’s Director-General, Mr C.I.D Maduabum, the governors said the communiqué merely stated the facts.
They quoted John Adams who said: “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
The statement, while trying to explain what the communique was meant to achieve, said the PDP governors made a comparative sketch of Nigeria in 2015 under PDP and Nigeria in 2022 under APC.
“The communiqué reeled out the fact that in almost all sectors, things have gotten worse by over 1000 per cent. This is reflected in prices of basic foodstuffs, unemployment rate, electricity prices, kerosene, diesel, fuel, aviation fuel, and air ticket prices which have all gone through the roof. It reeled out figures on poverty, inflation, exchange rate, debt accumulation, and corruption,” it added.
According to Maduabum, all aspects of life in Nigeria are being systematically destroyed by the APC administration, saying life has become short, brutish, and valueless in Buhari’s Nigeria as insecurity ravages the land.
“But this is not the problem of Garba Shehu, who is enveloped in the Presidential Villa, totally oblivious of the suffering and agony Nigerians are facing,” the statement said.
Quoting copiously from the communique, the PDP Governors’ Forum said the most disturbing aspect of misrule of the APC as chronicled in the communiqué is the petroleum sector.
“The stealing of Nigeria’s crude oil and the connivance of NNPC in short-changing other tiers of government, namely, states and local governments are simply mind-boggling, if not outright criminal. Nigeria now produces 1.1 million barrels of crude oil per day. It can produce 2.5million per day. It cannot even meet its OPEC quota of 1.8 million per day. NNPC is a law unto itself.
“Nobody can call them to order to desist from the part of lawlessness and unconstitutional acts it has chosen to dwell in. Of course, President Buhari is the Minister of Petroleum Resources. Under his watch, Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Sector is deteriorating. In an accountable government, he should have resigned his position as Minister of Petroleum, as a result of the cataclysmic failures in the sector,” the statement said.
It further said: “It is even shocking that Garba Shehu admits that funds from NNPC are now directly used to fund social and health programmes, road construction, etc, in an unconstitutional overreach. NNPC can spend the Federal Government’s share of the Federation Account as it pleases. It cannot spend money belonging to other tiers of government without their approval.
“NNPC cheats states and local governments. NNPC recklessly squanders money belonging to other tiers of government and has the audacity and impudence to pay Zero amount of money into the Federation Account.”
According to the Forum, Garba Shehu “conveniently ignored the facts in the PDP Governors Communique that exposed the deduction of N788 billion for NNPC’s own chosen projects without recourse to the Federation Account; the deduction of N8.3billion monthly for rehabilitation of refineries in Nigeria that do not work; the scandal called petroleum subsidy that gulps trillions of naira yearly without accountability and value for money.
It added that between 2012 and 2021, N7.6T has been withheld by NNPC from the Federal Account. “Yet, Garba Shehu kept mum on these scandalous disclosures,” the Forum said.
They said Shehu accused the PDP governors of influencing ethnic and religious tensions, asking how they are pointing out the deteriorating situation in Nigeria, inflamed ethnic and religious tensions.
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The Buhari Presidency by all objective accounts, they said, is the worst in Nigeria’s history in “managing our diversity”.
“Under APC’s seven years of rule, Nigerians no longer trust one another, ethnic and religious differences are not properly managed. All our fault lines are exposed and exacerbated,” they said.
On Shehu’s comment on the naira, they said: “It is even more surprising that Garba Shehu mentioned the value of the naira. What can we say? There is no strategy, no concerted effort to stabilise the value of the naira.
“How can there be a plan when the CBN Governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, is openly running for the office of President, spending billions in television and newspaper advertisement and other costly engagements. This is being done under the nose of Mr President. There can be no better evidence of government adrift, unconcerned, and rudderless.”
The governors, therefore, sounded the alarm on the problems facing the country, asking the government to wake up from its deep slumber. “In any case, there is hope on the horizon as PDP is poised to rescue and rebuild Nigeria after 2023,” the statement said.
