Okechukwu taunts PDP over Obasanjo’s rebuff, explains President’s borrowings

A founding member of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Osita Okechukwu, has challenged the leadership of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to campaign on its records instead of resorting to name calling and innuendos.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari, whom the PDP national chairman called clueless, has been able to address the monumental infrastructure deficit bequeathed by PDP through official sleaze and unconscionable waste of public resources.

He said: “I have tremendous respect for Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, an intellectual and seasoned academic. However, one needs to remind him of the huge and unconscionable infrastructural deficit that PDP bequeathed to Buhari’s regime, which compelled borrowing for development.”

Okechukwu named some of the projects Buhari prosecuted with borrowed funds, including Ibadan-Lagos standard gauge rail line, Second Niger Bridge, as well as 13,000 kilometres of federal road network nationwide.

Okechukwu, who spoke to journalists in Abuja, yesterday, chided PDP leaders for their less than transparent power sector privatisation programme, saying it not only jeopardised Nigeria’s economic development, but also caused the abandonment of independent power plants.

On the PDP leaders’ visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Okechukwu described Obasanjo’s rejection of PDP’s overtures as a signal to another defeat in the 2023 presidential election.

Okechukwu, who is the Director General of Voice of Nigeria (DG, VON), wondered how PDP leaders refused to understand that Nigerians are suspicious and no longer interested in reinforcing the party’s ‘share the money’ culture.

“It smacks of a politically incorrect move for a party, whose membership card was publicly shredded, to go back, asking for support of the same statesman that rejected its association,” the DG maintained.

It would be recalled that PDP stalwarts, led by National Chairman, Ayu, visited Obasanjo in his Abeokuta, Ogun State, residence, during which the former President disclosed that he was done with partisan politics.

Commenting on the visit, Okechukwu noted that Obasanjo’s re-entry could have boosted the morale of PDP members, even as he described the rejection as a bad omen, coming, especially, at the eve of a crucial presidential election.

He said: “I have my sympathy for our sister political party, PDP, over this misadventure. Just imagine the uncommon electoral boost the party would have generated if Obasanjo had accepted their request.”