The Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) has challenged the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar to point at any meaningful legacy project initiated and completed by his party in 16 years in office.
The group said this in response to claims by the former Vice President that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has done nothing in eight years in office.
In a statement signed by its Chairman Niyi Akinsiju and Secretary Cassidy Madueke, BMO argued that there was no basis to compare 16 years without legacy project with the Buhari era of infrastructural strides and human capital development.
BMO said: “As usual, former Vice President Atiku is back on the campaign trail repeating the same cheap sloganeering lines he used in his 2019 campaign, but what we find insulting to Nigerians is his recent claim that President Buhari has done nothing in eight years compared with what PDP did in 16 years.
“Here is a man who as Vice President headed the economic team for half of the time PDP spent in the office, but rather than improve the lot of Nigerians played a key role in impoverishing the people at a time of oil boom.
“For the avoidance of doubt, it was a period the country began to send millions of people under the poverty threshold through mindless pillaging of the national treasure to the extent that the inflation rate peaked at 28% in August 2005.
“This was a period crude oil was selling at a premium to the extent that $16bn was reported to have been spent on the power sector alone, yet no meaningful legacy project was initiated for succeeding administrations to build on.
“Lest we forget, Alhaji Atiku also presided over a privatisation process that saw several government-owned enterprises sold off at less than their market values to cronies to strip and cannibalise, and in the process, tens of thousands of workers were denied their livelihood and laid off without benefits.
“The succeeding PDP administrations did not fare any better either, and despite earning $381bn from crude sales between 2010 and 2014, the nation’s external reserves fell to $30bn by 2014 and they left behind a national debt of $63.806bn.
“This is PDP legacy that we know but we challenge Atiku and his party to prove us wrong and mention two legacy projects they initiated and completed in the 16 years they held on to power at the centre”.
BMO added that conversely, the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration did far more in the last seven years in more difficult circumstances.
“It is common knowledge that at the time President Buhari took office, Nigeria was on the verge of a recession on the basis of declining oil prices and a depleted foreign reserve.
“But in spite of two recessions, a global lockdown caused by COVID-19 and a war with worldwide implications, Nigeria has more completed and ongoing infrastructure projects today than in the preceding 16 years.
“There is an agriculture revolution sparked by the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) that has turned Nigeria into Africa’s largest rice producer with an annual production of 8m metric tonnes, amongst others, by making N1tn available to over 3m farmers since its launch in November 2015.
“We may not be where we ought to be as a nation, but the Buhari administration is putting in place several structures that never existed before, including the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) that is being institutionalized with different initiatives for different segments of the populace.
“We recognize that Atiku and other opposition elements have been repeating the same lines over the years but we will continue to expose their lies and prove that Buhari has indeed done a lot”, the statement added.
