June 18, (THEWILL)- “Even most recently, President Buhari openly resorted to false claims when he told Nigerians that his administration has pulled 10.5 Nigerians out of poverty in the last two years, only for the World Bank to do a fact check and discovered that, to the contrary, 7.8 million Nigerians have rather been dragged below the poverty line in the last 12 months,” Nigeria’s main opposition, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has submitted.
PDP’s Thursday statement comes on the heels of a Wednesday June 16 one by The Presidency that accused the party’s governors of lamenting the banning of Twitter on June 4 because the micro-blogging site’s absence hampered their ability to spread falsehood widely.
The PDP Governors Forum had, following its meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, among a wide latitude of complaints about the country’s administration, pinned the Twitter ban on the President’s ego, expressing fears it could be a harbinger of the country’s descent into a dictatorship.
But The Presidency on Thursday through Garba Shehu, Senior Assistant to the President on Media, accused PDP governors of bellyaching over being deprived of a propaganda resource as well as cheap money.
Clapping back in the running dialogue through a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the opposition party said The Presidency was currently peopled by a bevy of liars.
It rallied support for the position of the PDP governors and rather accused the President’s aides of lie-peddling, saying Nigerians would not forget in a hurry that Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) rode into office by subterfuge and falsehood.
The Ologbodinyan-signed statement of Thursday June 17 and titled “PDP To Buhari: Our Governors Don’t Peddle Falsehood Like You” reads:
“The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says it is appalled by the unwarranted attack and name calling by President Muhammadu Buhari against the governor elected on the platform of the PDP.
“The party describes as upresidential and pedestrian, a statement by President Buhari, in which he described the governor elected on the platform of our party as peddlers of fake news, just because they pointed to his failures and proffered solutions to the challenges facing our nation.
“For the avoidance of doubts, the PDP insists that our governors are responsible and responsive leaders, who have always shown concern towards the plight of Nigerians.
“It is on record that they attend to the wishes of Nigerians in their respective states and do not by any whim, resort to peddling of fake news and lies like the Buhari Presidency and his All Progressives Congress (APC).
“Nigerians will not forget how President Buhari and his party came to power by means of fake news, lies, falsehood, fake promises, deceit, beguilements and negative innuendos, a scope they have widened and deepened in the last six years.
“In fact, it is equally on record that never in the history of Nigeria have we had a Presidency that so thrives on lies like that of President Buhari, to the extent that Nigerians have even given one of his ministers the public the appellation of a “liar”.
“Even most recently, President Buhari openly resorted to false claims when he told Nigerians that his administration has pulled out 10.5 Nigerians out of poverty in the last two years, only for the World Bank to do a fact check and discovered that, to the contrary, 7.8 million Nigerians have rather been dragged below the poverty line in the last 12 months.
“It would also be recalled that in fishing for lies to justify its unwarranted ban on Twitter, the Buhari-led Federal Government alleged that Twitter makes “billions of naira” in Nigeria, only for fact checks to reveal to the contrary.
“Nigerians have not forgotten how the Buhari administration scammed Nigerians with a non-existent national carrier for which billions of naira was funnelled out of the treasury, in one of the biggest lies a government ever told its citizens.
“Since the Buhari Presidency has called itself out on its tradition of lies and falsehood, the PDP will not hesitate to publish the Buhari and APC compendium of lies, as told to Nigerians.
“It is also ludicrous that President Buhari whose Presidency is a known sanctuary of corruption could attempt to point accusing fingers at governors elected on the platform of the PDP just because they pointed to the evident mismanagement of our petroleum and other national resources.
“This is an administration which has not been able to account for over N15 trillion reportedly stolen from NNPC coffers including the N9.6 trillion detailed in the leaked NNPC memo, the reported N1.1 trillion worth of crude stolen with 18 unregistered vessels, the over N2 trillion siphoned through various subsidy scams and other reported frauds in agencies such as FIRS, NPA, NDDC, NEMA, NHIS, among others.
“It is on record that unlike the PDP administration that exposed and prosecuted any official accused of any misdemeanour bordering on corruption, President Buhari, in a very recent global interview admitted that his government and party are infested by corrupt people and that instead of exposing and prosecuting them, he devised a way of “easing them out”.
“The Buhari Presidency and the APC must know that their unwarranted attacks on our governors cannot sway the public or divert attention from the atrocities of the Buhari administration.”
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