On Wednesday, leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Labour Party (LP) had a contentious discussion on Nigeria’s hurting economy and deteriorating circumstances.
Spokesman for the LP Tanko Yunusa, APC’s Niyi Akinsiju, and PDP’s Ilemona Onoja
Akinsiju said that despite a decline in the price of crude oil, the APC government had been able to fulfill its obligations despite inheriting debt from the PDP government, which had been in power for 16 years.
On the other side, Onoja claimed that while the PDP gave the APC a military-inherited nation that was economically stable, the APC has ruined the Nigerian economy.
However, Yunusa came to the depressing conclusion that the PDP’s failure offered the APC an opportunity in 2015, adding that in the last seven and a half years since coming to power, the APC has increased the mismanagement of the nation.
The PDP has produced three presidents for a total of 16 years (Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’Adua, and Goodluck Jonathan) since Nigeria’s restoration to democracy in 1999 following years of military government.
With the election of Buhari, a former military leader of state, the APC assumed power in May 2015.
PDP Left An Economic Hole.
Insisting that the Buhari administration has performed admirably, Akinsiju, a member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council for Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, noted that Tinubu and his running mate will build on the economic successes of the current administration if they win the February 25, 2023 presidential election.
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He claims that when Buhari took office in May 2015, the PDP left the country’s economy in ruins, but the current president has been able to stabilize it.
“The PDP left our party (the APC) in power with a hollow economy and hollow administration, but now that we have Buhari in charge, the economy is stabilized.
“We had a 21.09% inflation rate and a 9.6% target, but the COVID-19 epidemic that year in August, when we recorded the worst inflation rate our country has ever seen (28.21%), never happened.
Furthermore, the price of crude oil per barrel was rising at the time that we had this conversation.
A barrel cost $19 in 1999.
By 2005, the price had increased to well than $60 a barrel.
The PDP administration left us with a $63 billion debt in 2015, but since then, we have been able to manage the economy despite the effects of global headwinds by adapting and using our own inventiveness.
Today, the total debt under discussion is $102 billion.
Please deduct $63 billion from that debt, he said.
Atiku’s Man: APC, A Monumental Failure
In contrast to Akinsiju, Onoja, a member of the Presidential Campaign Council for Atiku Abubakar and Ifeanyi Okowa, disagreed, claiming that the APC has been a party of sadness, agony, and uncertainty tainted by terrible governance and incompetence.
In light of the adoption of a currency shift, he also criticized the APC government’s cash withdrawal restrictions, claiming that this policy is bound to failure, would result in job losses, and will push millions of people into poverty.
“Nigeria’s GDP grew by 0.9% in 1999.
2000 – 5%.
2002 – 15.3%.
Under Alhaji Atiku Abubakar’s leadership as the National Economic Council chairman, this economy expanded.
We are talking 3% growth for the APC for the past seven and a half years, which is higher than the growth of your population.
How?
The failure that keeps them up at night (APC) is so significant in their private time.
“The PDP gave the APC a country that was far superior to what it had received from the military.
And what harm has the APC caused to that nation?
It has distorted it, torn it to pieces, taken away our children’s access to food, our adolescents’ access to school, our parents’ safety and security, and our access to healthcare collectively.
Obi’s ally, APC and PDP are siamese twins.
For his part, Yunusa, the primary spokesperson for the 2023 campaign of Peter Obi of the LP and Datti Baba-Ahmed, who is running as an independent, claimed that when it comes to economic mismanagement and corruption, the PDP and the APC are identical twins.
“The APC wouldn’t have emerged if the PDP had performed so brilliantly during its eight years in power.
We are at that time as a result of poor resource management.
The APC emerged and increased the poor management.
“How else can you characterize a failure of a government if 133 million Nigerians are living in utter poverty, according to the National Bureau of Statistics?
Both of them left debt for Nigeria, but after leaving government, Obi left N75 billion in Anambra, he claimed.
The 2023 presidential election has been dubbed a three-horse contest by pundits and features Atiku, a former vice president, Obi, a former governor of Anambra State, and Tinubu, a former governor of Lagos State.
