Buhari wants PDP’s 16 years ‘of waste’ documented

PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari has stressed the need for historians and economists to document what he said is the 16 years of squander-mania and mismanagement by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

According to him, this is imperative so that future generations would not repeat the same mistakes, President Muhammadu Buhari has said.

The President spoke at State House, Abuja, Thursday, while receiving members of the Forum of Presidential Candidates & Political Parties for Good Governance, who decided to abandon their ambitions to support the president.

A statement issued by Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President (Media and Publicity) quoted the President as saying: “I am overwhelmed by your patriotism. The least you could do was to deny me votes in your immediate constituencies. However much your people loved me, they would have voted for their own first. I am really overwhelmed by your support.”

The President told his guests he was glad that Nigerians understood the three fundamentals on which the administration was anchored namely; securing the country, reviving the economy, and fighting corruption.

Listing achievements in his three focal areas, he declared: “We lost unimaginable revenue in the 16 years of mismanagement of the country by the previous PDP administrations.

“Look at the state of roads, rail, power, and infrastructure generally, as at 2015, when we came into office. The roads were not done, neither were they even maintained. The number of lives and property lost on Lagos/Ibadan Expressway on a daily basis, for instance, was very sad and tragic. And many other roads like that in the country. If the various administrations had fixed infrastructure, Nigerians would have simply minded their businesses.

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“They wouldn’t bother about who even governs them. But the mismanagement was unparalleled. Our historians and economists should help document it, so that future generations would take note, and not repeat the mistakes.”

President Buhari said after contesting four times, “before God agreed with me in 2015, I had a clear plan of what I wanted to do, and people are now seeing the progress we are making.”

The former presidential candidates who endorsed the president are Shittu Mohammed Kabiru, Advanced Peoples Democratic Alliance (APDA); Hon. Edozie  Nnamdi Madu, Independent Democrats; Danjuma Mohammed, Movement for Restoration and Defence of Democracy, Mamman Yusuf Naptali, Allied Peoples Movement, and Ahmed Buhari, Save Nigeria Party.

Others are Alhaji Isabi Dansaki, Mass Movement of Nigeria, Ikechukwu Nwokeafor, Advanced Congress of Democrats; Alistar Shoyode, Yes Party; Charles Ughalli, Advanced Nigeria Democratic Party; Kenneth Ibe Kalu, United Peoples Congress; Comrade Isiaka Paul Ebili, Nigeria Element Progressives Party, and Robinson Apu, National Democratic Liberty Party.

They have directed their supporters to vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate.

Chairman of the Forum,  Kabir, said they decided to throw in their lots with President Buhari because of advances made in security, economy, fighting corruption, infrastructural development, agricultural revolution, and many others.

According to him, “Nigerian political landscape is taking a new dimension…As a group of political parties committed to the realization of a new Nigeria, we identify with these laudable feats of the President, which are in proximity with ours, as exemplified in our manifestoes. We, therefore, wish to support President Buhari’s candidacy in the coming election, and direct all our teeming members across the length and breadth of Nigeria to go out in their numbers, to vote for APC candidates, Muhammadu Buhari/Yemi Osinbajo, in the coming election.”

Reacting to the President’s remark, the PDP said four years of Buhari will only be remembered for “the pain, anguish and bloodletting” it brought to Nigerians.

According to the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Kola Ologbodiyan, who made the declaration, never again will the country witness the monumental waste under the present dispensation within such a short time.

He also dismissed the 12 presidential candidates who endorsed the president, saying that they are not known to the PDP.

The party spokesman accused the APC of shopping for endorsement.

On the Yobe state PDP chairman, Sani Nguru. who was received by the president at presidential villa following his defection from the former ruling party, Ologbodoyan said the PDP has no report of any of its state chairmen defecting.