BREAKING NEWS, Featured, Politics
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Less than two months to be one year in office, the All Progressives Party ruling party in Nigeria is still blaming the Peoples Democratic Party for running the country aground instead of coming out with key socio-economic policies to curb the hardships Nigerians are going through
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Apr 18, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT |
TEN months after assuming power, the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, is still passing the buck and blaming the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, for the current hardship Nigerians are going through. The APC-government, which will clock one year in office on May 29, has attributed every imaginable problem the country is having to the bad leadership PDP displayed in the 16 years it ruled the country. From insecurity, poor infrastructure, power outages, foreign exchange crisis, drop in crude oil prices and its attendant decline in oil revenue, pipeline vandalism, lingering fuel crisis and the fuel subsidy matter to non-payment of workers and pensioners in both the federal and state levels have been heaped on the door of PDP.
Unlike in other countries, where new governments devise new implementable policies, programmes based on their party manifesto to correct mistakes of the past, bolster the economy and fast track developments, engender growth and get people to key into such policies to better their lot, the government of APC led by Buhari is still floundering with people still in the dark as how it plans to get the country out the current economic woes. What is going on now is just the unending blame game which is becoming a favorite of the APC Party stalwarts.
Some political and economic watchers attribute this development to the fact that the APC-led government is not very sure how, where and when to start tackling the challenges facing the country head on. This could be as a result of the fact that this is the first time an opposition party is taking over from a ruling and needed time to comprehend the complex web of governance in the country. But there are others who think APC lacks what it takes to govern the country. This school of thought believes that if APC had what it takes to govern the country, 11 months was enough time for economic watchers and policy analyst to get the direction the government was going.
This belief is buttress from the conundrum from top government functionaries who seizes every opportunity to remind Nigerians that PDP should be held responsible for the appalling state to of the economy. For instance, President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, April 4, told a delegation of the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, led by Bernard Aliyu, its president in Abuja, that: “In the First Republic, more enduring infrastructure was built with meagre resources. But in the past 16 years, we made a lot of money without planning for the rainy day. We showed a lot of indiscipline in managing our economy, and that is why we are where we are today,” he said.
Agreeing with President Buhari, on Wednesday, February 17, Yakubu Dogara, speaker of the House of Representatives, warned Nigerians to stop blaming the APC-led administration for the current economic challenges facing the country. He said instead of blaming the APC-led government, the people who brought Nigeria to its current state should be held responsible.
Dogara, who said that President Buhari was working fast to correct past anomalies in the country based on the promises APC made during the campaign, added: “We sowed in the wind and we are now reaping whirlwind and as long as the earth abides, there will be seed time and harvest time. We do not want to dwell in the past, we are facing the future.’’
Similarly, Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, on Sunday, December 13, 2015, 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 administrations of PDP, rather than any so-called mismanagement by the Buhari 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.
“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.
Also following the lingering fuel scarcity that has continued to ravage the nation, Bola Tinubu, national leader of the APC, asked Nigerians to hold the PDP, responsible. He accused the leaders of the PDP for the decay which the country faces today. His grievance was hinged on the fact that the PDP wrecked the economy of the nation for 16 years, resulting in fuel scarcity, poor infrastructure, unemployment and underemployment, income inequality, food insufficiency among others. He pointed out that the Buhari-led administration was doing its best to repair the damage caused by the PDP within the shortest possible time.
Nonetheless, the PDP has asked the ruling party to face the business of governance and stop pushing over its administration’s shortcomings to others. Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, national chairman of the party, on Tuesday, April 5, said almost one year after it has been handed over the affairs of the country, APC ought to have been able to chart its own course and stop blaming PDP for its administrative lapses.
“The leadership of the party share the pains of Nigerians after one year in office of the All Progressives Congress-led government. Nigerians now have the opportunity of comparing the PDP and also the APC. The ultimate judges of this exercise are Nigerians. Instead of the APC addressing the problems of the country, the ruling party has kept blaming the PDP for lack of petrol in the country. I saw the other day a publication by one of the leaders of the APC that we are responsible for lack of petrol after their one year in office. I would like to advise the leaders of the APC to stop blaming us in the PDP, we are now in the opposition party, repositioning our party to show Nigerians that we could do better,” he said.
Taking a cue from the PDP, the Labour Party, LP, said the last 10 months of the President Buhari administration has not brought joy to the land but had instead given rise to fear and traits of political and economic siege on the people. The party also expressed worry over what it described as growing disharmony among various arms of government which is threatening the stability of the polity.
Abdulsami Abdulkadir, national chairman of the party, on Tuesday, April 5, blamed the attitude of the APC-led government for the prevailing economic crisis which has been further compounded by the shortcomings in the energy sector. He said that APC’s ‘change’ mantra has only been successful in foisting a siege mentality, a shared feeling of victimisation, defensiveness and defenselessness on the people.
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