The Federal Government has said the poor state of the country’s economy,
especially the depreciation in the Naira exchange rate, is the direct
consequence of the incomprehensible mismanagement of the economy and the
mindless looting of the national treasury under the immediate past
Administration.
”If there was still any honour left among thieves, there is no way the
leaders of a party under whose watch the nation’s economy suffered a
monumental mismanagement and the Central Bank was turned to the ATM or
piggy bank of a few people will have the temerity to insult a government
that is working hard to turn things around or the citizens who are bearing
the brunt of such mismanagement,” the Minister of Information and
Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said in a statement on Sunday.
”It is now clear to all Nigerians that if the PDP had won the last
general elections, Nigeria’s economy would not have survived one more
month, considering the battering it received under the immediate past
Administration. It is therefore unconscionable that those who should show
contrition and hunker down to avoid public opprobrium are the same ones
pointing an accusing finger at the Buhari Administration,” he said.
Alhaji Mohammed described the comments credited to Deputy Senate President
Ike Ekweremadu, that businesses may collapse in the next six months
because the Buhari Administration has mismanaged the economy, as the
clearest indication yet that the PDP and its leaders are still in denial
about the massive body blows they inflicted on the Nigerian economy.
”Senator Ekweremadu complained about the depreciation of the Naira
without telling Nigerians who ‘dollarized’ the Nigerian economy by bribing
many individuals and groups with dollars during the last elections, thus
inflicting a knock-out punch on the local currency. He also failed to tell
Nigerians which government presided over the frenzied mop-up of dollars,
either for ‘armsgate’ or for slush fund purposes, from the CBN to a point
where it almost ran out of the hard currency,” he said
The Minister said even though the Buhari Administration met an economy
that was in coma, it had refused to use that as an excuse for inaction,
hence has been working hard on measures that will turn the economy around
and greatly offer relief to Nigerians by lifting millions, not thousands,
of people out of poverty through a massive social intervention policy.
”The outcome of the months of hard work will manifest soon in the 2016
national budget that will give succour to millions of Nigerians who are
reeling from fallout of the solecism of the immediate past Administration
that turned the country into a cash bazaar,” the Minister said.
He advised the leaders of the PDP and members of the immediate past
administration who are involved in the emerging cases of looting binge to
urgently return, to government coffers, the funds they have squirreled out
of the commonwealth.
”They are lucky that Nigerians are not as incautious as they are,
otherwise they would not be able to walk around freely, not to talk of
having the effrontery to fire darts at the government that inherited their
rot or the people who are suffering the consequences.
”They looted the billions of Naira that were allocated for the fight
against insurgency, causing many innocent and patriotic soldiers to die
needlessly, yet they are not remorseful. They looted the treasury to
influence the last elections, doling out money as if it was going out of
fashion, yet they continue to grandstand.
”In the latest revelation, a Minister under the immediate past
dispensation admitted to sharing 600 million Naira to six Chairmen of the
Contact and Mobilization Committee of the PDP for the last general
elections, 300 million Naira to an account given by a former PDP chairman,
200 million Naira to a PDP governorship candidate and 100 million Naira to
a former PDP governor. This is just one case out of many, yet these
revelations are but a tip of the iceberg of what Nigerians will hear in
the days ahead,” Alhaji Mohammed said.
The Minister assured that despite the mind-boggling revelations about
looting and the mismanagement by self-styled economic wizards, the economy
will bounce back under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari, who is
bringing probity and transparency back into governance.