APC’s Incompetence Responsible For Economic Recession, Not Jonathan, Says PDP

APC-PDP.jpgAThe Senator Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said the current economic recession in the country is a result of the incompetence and lack of vision displayed by the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).

The party said the economic policies of the APC-led federal government is responsible for the “current stagnation of the economy”.

The PDP said former President Goodluck Jonathan should be spared the blame game for the nation’s economic woes.

The opposition party was reacting to a statement credited to Governor of Jigawa State, Abubakar Badaru that the Jonathan-led government laid the foundation for the nation’s economic recession.

Nigeria’s economy formally entered recession last Wednesday after the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) witnessed negative growth for two consecutive quarters.

The Jigawa governor had in an interview he granted a national daily, blamed years of “systemic maladministration” under Jonathan for the economic recession in the country, adding that people should stop expecting President Muhammadu Buhari to wave a magic wand that will suddenly make all the problems to disappear.

“Do you know that illicit funds traced to a few individuals under the last PDP administration can fund several months of foreign exchange auctions? I think we should thank our stars and heave a sigh of relief that a change at the helm of affairs has probably brought this country back from the brink of collapse, because a continuation of the former government would not only have exposed the mess we were in, we would also have woken up one day to find that they have taken their private jets and handed over what is left of the country to Boko Haram”, he said.

But the PDP caretaker committee, in a statement by its spokesman, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, described the comment by Gov. Badaru as disappointing.

The statement said the APC should be reminded that great leaders take over countries either in ‎recession or war and still succeed in turning them around, adding that the governing party has “plunged” Nigeria’s economy into ‎an “avoidable recession” only to turn round and “begin to whine helplessly ‎like a baby”.

The party said: “Will Badaru and his party men continue to blame Jonathan and the PDP ‎‘till 2019 and use Jonathan for the 2019 campaign instead of showing ‎their scorecard? The good thing is that Nigerians who were being ‎hoodwinked at first, are now seeing through the deception of this ‎unending blame game.

“Any dispassionate assessment of economic performance ‎under Jonathan would obviously frown at Governor Badaru’s type of ‎impulsive conclusion without recourse to the strong macroeconomic ‎fundamentals recorded under Jonathan, which laid the foundation for ‎meaningful growth.

“Badaru and those who still think like him should tell Nigerians the ‎character of the economic team in place that has been managing the ‎Nation’s economy since 29th of May 2015.

“Governor Badaru should know that you can’t plant grapes and harvest ‎mangoes.

“It is no secret that the policies and statements made by key ‎government actors have not been business friendly and Nigerians and ‎foreign business men took their hard currencies out of the country. When ‎professionals were advising the government to woo investors, characters ‎like Badaru were busy de-marketing Nigeria all over the world.

“We make bold to tell Governor Badaru that Jonathan ‎and the PDP government saw this coming since 2011, ‎and wanted to deregulate the sale of hydrocarbons in 2012, but Badaru ‎and his co-travelers who are now in the All Progressives Congress (APC) ‎frustrated the effort.

“The former administration also wanted to encourage more savings in the Excess Crude Account (ECA) and set up the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) but the Badarus of this world who play politics with serious national issues and were state governors at the ‎time took the Federal Government to Court and did everything to ‎frustrate the effort. Thank God some of them are among the ‘best brains’ ‎in the APC federal government of today”.