President Muhammadu Buhari
ABUJA—President Muhammadu Buhari
has vowed not to shy away from telling Nigerians how the immediate past
administration allegedly plundered the economy, irrespective of anyone’s
feelings.
Responding to allegations by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, that
he was demarketing the country and dissuading foreign investments, the
President vowed that the relentless tackles of the opposition party
would not in any way dissuade him from his obligations to the citizenry
and the international community.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh had,
yesterday, attacked the President’s claim in India that Nigeria was
broke, saying that such claims at international fora tended to worsen
the country’s investment climate.
Metuh had, in his statement, alleged that such claims by the
President were essentially because of his lack of a viable economic
plan.
Responding to PDP yesterday, presidential spokesman, Femi Adesina,
said that Metuh’s attempts to distract the President from focusing on
his job would fail, maintaining that he was a broken record.
The statement read in part: “Our attention has been drawn to the
latest statement by the PDP spokesman, Olisa Metuh, alleging that
President Muhammadu Buhari is ‘demarketing Nigeria’.
“We restate for the umpteenth time to Mr. Metuh and his ilk that
their attempts to distract President Buhari from the job he has been
elected to do will fail.
“President Buhari will remain true to the virtues of honesty,
integrity, sincerity, incorruptibility and plain-speaking, which
endeared him to Nigerians and made them prefer his leadership to that of
a lying and deceptive PDP administration.
“The President will not, in the guise of ‘marketing’ the country,
refrain from telling Nigerians and the world, the emerging truths about
the abject state in which years of plundering by a PDP leadership has
left the Nigerian treasury and economy.
“President Buhari will not in the name of ‘marketing’ or ‘attracting’
investors, follow in the footsteps of the ousted PDP administration and
its discredited officials, who shamelessly lied to Nigerians and the
world about the buoyancy and vibrancy of an economy they had bled dry
for personal gain, when it was very obvious to the discerning, that the
Nigerian economy was headed for serious trouble.”
PDP’s reaction
Earlier in his statement, Metuh had said: “Mr. President’s recent
announcement to the world that the nation, with its abundant human and
natural resources, is broke and cannot pay cabinet ministers, not only
sends a discouraging signal to the domestic and international business
community, but also exposes the ineptitude of the present administration
to meaningfully and sincerely exert itself and work with industrious
and innovative investors to create and manage wealth.
“We ask how can any reasonable investor still have the confidence to
invest in a country where the President himself continues to alert that
his country reeks of corrupt people and that the government is broke to
the extent it cannot pay cabinet ministers?
“Is the President not directly advising investors against having
confidence in Nigeria and the system, and that they risk not being paid
for jobs awarded by government at any level?
“More worrisome is the fact that Mr. President makes his damaging
comments in international fora with potential investors in attendance.
It reminds one of the proverbial father who, in the presence of
potential suitors, often portrays his daughters as wayward and yet
constantly complain of their inability to find husbands.”
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