Buhari: ‘President is clueless on how to get Nigeria out of recession,’ PDP says

The PDP made the comment via a statement released by new media spokesman, Deji Adeyanju on Thursday, August 11, 2016.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that President Muhammadu Buhari is clueless on how to handle Nigeria’s economy.

The PDP made the comment via a statement released by new media spokesman, Deji Adeyanju on Thursday, August 11, 2016.

The statement reads:

“The facts stated this morning by Professor Osinbajo are confirmation of the negative effects of the failed & incoherent policies of the Muhammadu Buhari administration since inception.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we will repeat some of them. Foreign Investment fell by 56% from $395m in Q1 2015 to $175m in Q1 2016. Foreign Investment in the Stock market stood at a mere $90.3m in Q1 2016 down from $621m in Q1 2015.

“Inflation has risen to 16.5% in 2016. It stood at 9.6% in 2015 & 8.6% in 2014. GDP growth has fallen from 6.3% in 2014 to 2.3% in 2015 & -1.8% in 2016. It is difficult to verify his claim that FIRS has achieved 73.17% because the FIRS has blatantly refused to publish quarterly reports for 2016.

“Osinbajo also states that CAPEX spending of the FG this year has been N332b & promises a release of N100b in the coming days. While we appreciate this expenditure, it is a meagre 18.4% of the N1.8t proposed by Budget2016 & as such is insufficient to provide any meaningful effect on the economy. Releasing only 18.4% of CAPEX expenditure as at August 2016 has stalled infrastructure develpment & has killed 1000s of jobs.

“The sum total of these figures shows that Buhari admin has badly mismanaged the Nigerian economy. Even worse, the Buhari admin has no clue as to how to reposition Nigeria to beat the recession they have forced us into.

“Many agencies are violating the FOI Act & refusing to divulge data because such data would reveal the extent of damage this admin has caused. We hope that having finally appointed a Special Adviser on Economic Matters the Buhari admin will come up with better policies than the “try your luck” approach adopted in the past 15 months.”

The party was reacting to figures given by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo at the 2016 Presidential Policy Dialogue Session, organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry.