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Buhari’s re-election bid fueling sleazes in oil sector, PDP alleges

By Azimazi Jimoh, Abuja
12 February 2018   |   4:26 am
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid has promoted large-scale corruption in the petroleum sector, a development, which he has refused to address.

President Muhammadu Buhari PHOTO: BAYO OMOBORIOWO

• Asks president to quit as petroleum minister
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s re-election bid has promoted large-scale corruption in the petroleum sector, a development, which he has refused to address.

It also called on the president to save Nigerians the trauma of sleeping in fuel stations by quitting as Minister of Petroleum Resources and allow a competent hand to manage its affairs.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement yesterday, expressed sadness that the Presidency has refused to offer any explanation on the allegations linking the fuel crisis to the exposed siphoning of billions of naira through shady oil subsidy deals and the illegal lifting of crude oil worth trillions of naira, ostensibly to service APC interests ahead of the 2019 general elections.

According to the party, “As we speak, the economy has further dipped in the last two months of this harrowing fuel situation; more businesses have folded up, prices of essential goods are skyrocketing and families are, more than ever before, under intense pressure of meeting economic demand.

“Currently, marauders have chased farmers away from farmlands while Buhari Presidency continue to wax lip sermons on serious issues of insecurity.

“We call on President Buhari to quit this all important ministry of petroleum resources and allow competent hands to save our people from the anguish and pains they have been subjected to in the last few months,” the statement added.

The opposition party said it is disheartening that instead of being remorseful for its failures, the All Progressives Congress (APC)-controlled Federal Government is busy dishing out lies and fabricated indices in an attempt to give Nigerians false hope on issues related to the fuel crisis and the collapsing national economy.

The PDP said if President Buhari had heed wise counsel from well-meaning Nigerians, since last year, to quit office as the minister of petroleum and allow a more competent and knowledgeable person to run the ministry, the situation would not have degenerated to excruciating pains Nigerians suffer today.

The party said the fact that the Presidency has unapologetically failed to fix a national problem, which it last December promised to resolve within one week, shows it has no solution but intends to continue to hold the nation to ransom.

According to the PDP, the fact that there are inherent poor coordination, inefficiency and reported heavy sleazes in a sector that is under the direct supervision of the President, raises a lot of issues and speaks volumes of the evident mismanagement of the system for which the economy is now in complete shambles.

“It is an appalling height of insensitivity that the president, as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, has failed to take any decisive steps to arrest the situation, which has remained unabated since the last Yuletide.

“Rather, the sector has been delivered to an APC cabal, whose mission, particularly, the desperate re-election bid, largely account for the biting fuel situation and the economic misery Nigerians suffer today.” The PDP noted.

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