The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the main opposition party in Nigeria, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign, accusing his administration of incompetence as the nation has been confirmed by the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) to be in economic recession.
The party on Wednesday said in a press statement by its Director of New Media, Mr. Deji Adeyanju: “We join all well meaning Nigerians to call on Mr. Buhari to resign if he is unable to reverse the disastrous economic decline he has brought on Nigerians,” the party said hours after NBS confirmed that Nigeria had slipped into recession.
According to the NBS, Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product contracted by 2.06 per cent, marking the first major recession in 29 years for the country.
Analysts have long predicted that Nigeria’s economy was heading for a recession amid a shrinking naira and diminishing revenues occasioned by low crude prices as well as the problem in the policy direction of the administration.
The PDP said the crisis was a direct consequence of Mr. Buhari’s “ineptitude and incompetent” approach to economic management which were a rehash of the “archaic and incoherent economic policies” he similarly pursued as the head of a military junta between 1983 and 1985.
“Nothing better showcases the absolute ineptitude and incompetence of the Muhammadu Buhari administration than the GDP, inflation and unemployment figures released by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics today,” the PDP said in the statement.
“The result of these indices is that Nigeria is in its worst economic state for 29 years —dating back to 1987 when the nation had to take harsh steps to recover from President Buhari’s policies of 1984-85.”
“As with 1984-85, companies are fleeing our shores in droves. Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) recently stated that 272 companies have shut down in the past one year,” Adeyanju said.
Adeyanju also quoted key aspects of the released data by the NBS and compared them with what they were before the present administration came in 2015. “Portfolio investment declined to an estimated $245.3m in Q2 2016. This represents a 9.5% from $271.0m in Q1 2016 and is a far cry from $2.81bn in Q2 2015. A total of 4,580,602 people have lost their jobs since May 29, 2015.”
In a related development the Buhari administration, in a statement on Wednesday afternoon, acknowledged the gloomy economic data, but assured of improvements in an apparent bid to assuage the fears of Nigerians.
It said: “The just released GDP figures for the 2016 second quarter by the National Bureau of Statistics while confirming a temporary decline have also indicated hopeful expectations in the country’s economic trajectory,” the State House said in a statement signed by Laolu Akande.
The administration attributed the negative results to the activities of oil vandals and said other aspects of the economy were yielding intended results, indicating that Buhari might not be ready to accept growing calls for a new policy direction.
“A close look at the data shows that this outcome was mostly due to a sharp contraction in the oil sector due to huge losses of crude oil production as a result of vandalisation and sabotage.
“However, the rest of the Q2 data is beginning to tell a different story. There was growth in the agricultural and solid minerals sectors which are the areas in which the Federal Government has placed particular priority,” Akande said.
In a swift reaction, PDP, in its statement, said it was unimpressed by the administration’s explanations, saying it had observed a worrisome trend in the polity.
“Our dismay is worsened by the fact that every sphere of the Nigerian socio-political space (ranging from the conduct of elections, human rights, respect for the rule of law, security, technology, health etc) is negatively affected by the Buhari administration,” Adeyanju said.
Comments are closed.