The Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) has urged Nigerians to ignore as puerile the excuses put forward by President Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress (APC) government for its glaring non-performance and failure to implement the N6.06 trillion 2016 budget.

The PPP in a statement signed by Damian Ogbonna, its National Chairman, dismissed the latest excuse as another lie contrived by the administration to cover its inability to proffer sound policies that can address economic challenges facing the country.

The Buhari administration had on Wednesday through Babachir David Lawal, the Secretary to Government of the Federation, said the nation’s earnings had declined by nearly 50 per cent as a result of the drastic fall in oil prices as well as the sustained attacks on oil installations by the Niger Delta militants. Consequently, he alerted that the N6.06 trillion budget this year would be partially implemented.

But the Peoples Progressive Party observed that rather than attract investors, Nigeria has lost 75 per cent in direct foreign investment in Buhari’s one year in office.

“The investors left with their monies not because of low prices of crude oil or the Niger Delta agitations. They cited the wrong-headed foreign exchange policies of Buhari’s government and the lack of an articulate economic policy to assist them predict and properly guide their investments.

“This is the core reason for the wealth exodus, which is the direct cause of our economic malaise today. For this government to now use low crude oil prices and the restive Niger Delta as the primary excuse for its pervasive non-performance is funny and an outright lie,” the party said in the statement.

Dr. Ogbonna argued that Nigeria is not the only country that exports oil as its main foreign exchange earner and currently contending with restiveness, but noted that whereas those nations continued to show overall positive performance in their economies, Nigeria has instead maintained a steady slide.

He said, “What we have here in Nigeria is a government that has abandoned the welfare of the people, preferring instead to hound and intimidate political opponents as an instrument to frighten the rest of us from speaking of the massive and reprehensible failures of a doomed administration.

“PPP wants it to be known that APC’s government under Muhammadu Buhari represents the most debase administration this country has had the misfortune of being saddled with.

“Human rights abuses are their preferred choice of governance. Extra-judicial killings of the unarmed protesting citizens are officially tolerated and swept under wraps. Threats and drums of war, rather than democratic ethos, has become their only tool to combat legitimate democratic agitations against an imperial and failing state.”

Continuing he said, “Defiling the rule of law and disobeying court orders is culture cherished by the President and his appointees. Attacking and desecrating our democratic institutions and other arms of government is now in vogue. Orchestrating actions upon actions of mass distraction in their desperate and futile effort to keep the masses deceived; this, too, has become their weapon.”

The PPP, he said, could not afford to be distracted as it urged Nigerians to focus on what he described as the mis-governance by the present administration and to act at appropriate time. •Source: Independent. Photo shows President Buhari.

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