• ‘President has no economic policy direction’ • FG not shopping for achievement, says Presidency • ‘Nothing to appropriate from past govt, APC claims

THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday, asked the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to activate various economic outlets which, according to the opposition political grouping, are stagnated at present due to the latter’s alleged inability to articulate a clear-cut economic policy for the nation. PDP National Publicity Secretary Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement yesterday, said it was disappointing that the government has been appropriating achievements of the previous administration in an attempt to make the public believe it recorded successes in critical sectors of the economy.

But in a reaction, the Federal Government, in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina said President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievements will speak loudly for themselves. The APC also finds such claims as distractions that will not deter the Buhari administration from rescuing Nigeria from the clutches of those who are holding the country by the jugular.

In a statement issued yesterday in Lagos‎ by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said those people frenetically engaged in fault finding with the Buhari administration, are those who either have skeletons in their cupboards or are acting at their behest, for a fee.

“These paranoid and skittish people daily run to the media to disparage the Buhari administration. Grasping at straws, they condemn and criticise everything from appointments to the war against corruption and the battle against insecurity, even though the party to which they belong had 16 years to make things right for Nigeria but chose to suck the country dry, enthrone insecurity and pauperise the citizenry.

“Their design is simple: Make enough incoherent noise in the media with the hope that the administration will be distracted. Unfortunately for them, they have failed in their evil machination, because this President can neither be deterred nor be distracted. While their dogs continue to bark, the caravan of the Buhari Administration proceeds on its steadfast journey,’’ it said.

But according to the PDP spokesman: “How do we explain APC’s spirited effort to make the public believe that the equipping of the country’s military for the fight against insurgency; the turn around of the nation’s oil refineries; and the polio-free certification of Nigeria were products of their government even when it is common knowledge that they have not been able to find their bearing for governance since their election into office.

“If the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki had not been courageous enough to release those incontrovertible facts that the Goodluck Jonathan-led PDP administration actually fortified the country’s military before leaving office in May, the APC would have succeeded in its propaganda against that administration and led Nigerians to believe that the equipping was a product of Buhari’s recent diplomatic shuttles.

“It is an obvious fact that before the May 29 handover to the APC, the Nigerian armed forces, using these equipment sourced under the watch of the PDP government, had already pushed the insurgents to the verge of surrender in the Sambisa Forest, only for them to now resurge under the APC-led government due to apparent lack of direction and confusion that have characterised this administration.

“In the same way, this government has positioned itself to claim credit for the turn around and resuscitation of some of the nation’s oil refineries without reference to the past administration that initiated and executed the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the facilities years back, which dividends the nation now enjoys and which will result in steady supply of petroleum products.

“Similarly, informed Nigerians note with dismay how the APC administration has been celebrating the certification of Nigeria as polio-free in the last one year by the World Health Organisation (WHO) without giving credit to the PDP-led government under whose watch the feat was achieved.”

The PDP said instead of trying to poach undeserved achievements, the Federal Government should brace up, articulate a precise economic policy, assemble an economic team and policy that will keep the nation on the path of economic progress and development carved out by the past Jonathan administration.

But the APC spokesman, wondered how “the APC-led Federal Government can be blamed for the blatant refusal of the last administration to adequately equip the military to confront the Boko Haram insurgency, when even an appointee of the administration told the world the military lacked the relevant equipment and motivation to fight an insurgency ‘’What achievement is there for anyone to appropriate from an administration that will go down in history as the most rapacious, incompetent and clueless in the history of our nation?’’ it queried.

APC said in less than three months of its existence, the Buhari administration has started off on a strong footing in many areas, including ‘‘the fight against insurgency, the battle against corruption, the reorganisation of the oil sector that was the private piggy bank of the last administration, the bailout of many states that could not pay the salaries of their workers, the revival of the Nigerian dream, the resetting of Nigeria’s diplomatic relations with the rest of the global community and the overdue clean-up of the Niger Delta region, which was shockingly ignored by a President from that region.”