Your party equally took questionable loans, APC replies Atiku

The governing All Progressives Congress (APC) has upbraided former vice-president and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in last general election, Atiku Abubakar, for expressing reservation over the contractual agreement between the Federal Government and its Chinese counterpart on the loan to fund ongoing railway projects in the country.

Atiku, in a statement by his media aide, Paul Ibe, condemned the rapidly rising national debt, which he noted was not being utilised for serious productive ventures.

The former presidential candidate equally restated his advice that the present administration should engage the private sector and promote foreign direct investment as sustainable alternatives through which government could fund infrastructure development programme.

But the APC in a statement on Monday dismissed the former vice-president’s position as “unresearched, unintelligent and pedestrian.”

The APC national publicity scribe, Yekeen Nabena, said rather than raising alarm on the standard sovereign guarantee and sovereign immunity clause embedded in Nigeria’s loan agreements with China, “Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could redirect their energies to explaining to Nigerians the status of the failed $460 million Abuja Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) awarded in August 2010 by the immediate-past PDP administration.”

Nabena in the statement further argued that under the erstwhile ruling party there was no fiscal discipline while loans guaranteed were not disbursed for projects which it was meant for.

The APC also called on the National Assembly to initiate legislative probe on foreign loans incurred under the past administration.

The statement further read in part: ” The statement issued by the Media Office of former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar on the standard sovereign guarantee and sovereign immunity clause embedded in Nigeria’s loan agreements with China to fund the ongoing national railway projects can be best described as unresearched, unintelligent and pedestrian.

“As the Minister for Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi has explained the guarantee/clause in the loan deals is standard irrespective of the country granting the loan.

“Perhaps, Atiku and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) could redirect their energies to explaining to Nigerians the status of the failed $460 million Abuja Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) awarded in August 2010 by the immediate-past PDP administration.

“Also, they should explain the over $2billion China loan the PDP administration took between 2010 and 2013 alone; $16billion spent on power with no electricity; fuel subsidy rackets; counter-insurgency funds that were diverted and shared to political cronies among other shocking heists.

“Recall that the failed CCTV installation project was initiated by late President Umaru Yar’Adua and awarded in August 2010 by former President, Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to help security agencies in the Federal Capital Territory check the growing insecurity.

“Since the agreement became signed, Nigeria has been servicing this loan to China while Nigerians are yet to attest to the visibility of CCTV project and unable to explain the status of the video surveillance project. The matter is subject to a legislative probe.

“In all of these, we are starkly reminded that the PDP remains a corrupted and damaged product. Nigerians must continue to reject the party at all levels of government.

“In the area of fiscal discipline, prudence, curbing leakages, are we currently getting it right? An emphatic yes! Every kobo expended on infrastructure counts. Verifiable evidence abounds in the fast-expanding national railway projects, airport remodelling among other critical infrastructure projects being undertaken by the President Muhammadu Buhari government.

“The days of phoney contracts as institutionalised by successive PDP administrations are fast fading.”

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