Eight years after the exit of the People’s Democratic Party, the governing All Progressives Congress has once again blamed it for the parlous state of the economy. The APC’s remarks followed the communiqué issued by the PDP Governors at the end of their meeting in Enugu on Wednesday.
The governors, representing the main opposition party, condemned the government’s economic policies, which they believe have led to widespread hardship among Nigerians. They also declared support for the Nigeria Labour Congress in its demand for a new minimum wage.
Felix Morka, National Publicity Secretary of the APC, dismissed the PDP as a morally bankrupt political party. Morka argued that apart from the petroleum subsidy regime and parallel foreign exchange regimes, the former ruling party has nothing to show for its 16 years of governing the country.
The statement reads in part:
“In yet another histrionic outburst, Governors elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of destroying the country’s economy and institutions ‘built’ during its 16 years of misrule. The governors made these blatantly denialist statements following their meeting in Enugu on July 17, 2024, over the recent epochal Supreme Court decision that granted financial autonomy to local government councils in the country.
“It is a sad irony that PDP Governors, who convened to discuss the newly won financial autonomy of local governments—the most remarkable breakthrough in democratic transformation in our country since 1999—ended their meeting by pointing their scabby political fingers at the APC government.
The APC accomplished a reform that the PDP did not and could not initiate, let alone deliver, during its desolate 16 years in government. PDP Governors are barefaced heirs of a legacy of sleaze and ruin, morally and politically unfit to point fingers.
“By their statement, it is now obvious that the PDP Governors lack an understanding of their place and responsibility in our system of government. They do not grasp the seriousness of the responsibility they bear as chief executives of their states to justify the resources at their disposal to build and bolster their domestic economies for the good of their people.
“Instead, the PDP Governors act as idle spectators and executive free-loaders, while blaming the federal government for everything, including their spectacular failure to accomplish even the most elementary service delivery to their people. For example, Delta State, governed by the PDP since 1999, is the highest recipient of federal allocations in the country but exemplifies the PDP’s acute corruption, misrule, and utter hopelessness, with piles of unpaid salaries and pensions to hardworking citizens of the state.
“The same PDP Governors, many of whom have failed to pay the legal minimum wage to their workers, gathered together, without any sense of shame, to accuse the President Bola Tinubu-led administration of delaying the approval of a new minimum wage for workers. These are the same governors who, only a few weeks ago, publicly proclaimed their inability to pay the proposed new minimum wage to their workers.
“In a fortuitous development, at the time of preparing this statement, President Tinubu, Nigeria’s President of Progress, has approved the sum of N70,000 (Seventy Thousand Naira) as the new minimum wage for workers in the country. This outcome is the result of the President’s determined leadership in discussions with leaders of organized labor. This will, no doubt, help to alleviate the transient economic hardship that our people have endured as part of their patriotic contribution to building a stronger and more vibrant economy for our country.
“Nigerians do not need to be reminded of the PDP’s inglorious 16 years of odious rule during which the party built nothing of lasting value and caused significant damage. The APC-led administration has been left to fix the PDP’s mess and address nearly two decades of debilitating corruption.
Through its award-winning Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), His Excellency Barr. Nyesom Wike, the APC-led administration is now completing and commissioning numerous road projects in the FCT, which were awarded and paid for as far back as 2003 and 2010 but recklessly abandoned by successive PDP administrations.
“The petroleum subsidy regime and parallel foreign exchange regimes sustained by the PDP led to reckless pillaging of our commonwealth, creating a gaping hole in the nation’s economy that the APC government continues to work assiduously to revitalize.
“The enduring benefits of President Tinubu’s APC administration’s reforms are certain and imminent. The transient hardship caused by necessary corrective policies will pale in comparison to the lasting prosperity they will bring to all Nigerians.”
