We handed over $550 billion economy to APC – PDP

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says that the All Progressive Congress (APC), which is in power now, took over $550 billion worth of business from its government in 2015.

In a statement released on Thursday to mark the party’s 25th anniversary, the PDP charged the APC-led government of putting Nigeria’s future at risk by racking up N85 trillion in foreign debt in just eight years.

The party said this about its success: “Today, the PDP celebrates the resilience of Nigerians in the democratic process, especially the founding leaders and many members of our Party for the sacrifices they made to bring democracy back to our country, nurture it, and keep it going.”

“It is a matter of record that the PDP administration, through skillful management of the economy, got $18 billion in debt relief from the Paris and London Clubs, consolidated the banking sector, revolutionized the telecommunications sector, revamped the oil and gas, manufacturing, aviation, agriculture, real estate, and other critical sectors to turn the inherited stagnant economy into one of the fastest growing in the world, and handed over a $550 billion economy (the largest in Africa and 26th largest in the world

“Because the PDP is focused on getting things done, our Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has grown to over $8 billion, and our Foreign Exchange Reserves have grown from $2 billion in 1999 to over $40 billion in 2014. Under the weak and dishonest APC government, our FDI has dropped to $-0.19 billion in 2022. Reports from JP Morgan said that Nigeria’s Foreign Exchange Reserves had dropped to $3.7bn as of the end of December 2022. The APC government did not say anything about these reports.

“Unfortunately, all of the gains made by the PDP have been rolled back by the APC. In just eight years, the APC has wrecked our economy and turned our country into the poverty capital of the world, with a scary 35% unemployment rate, where people are suffering from hunger, starvation, strange diseases, and sudden deaths.

“The dishonest APC government has managed to put our country’s future on the line by racking up N85 trillion in foreign debt without any development projects to show for it.

“Under the cruel, dishonest, and incompetent APC, major international companies are leaving Nigeria. The Naira has dropped from N197 to US$1 under the PDP to an abysmal over N900 to US$1. In 2015, a liter of gasoline cost N87, but it now costs over N600. This is on top of the many other high tariffs, taxes, and fees that the APC government has put on its people.

“Under the APC, life in Nigeria has become so hard to bear that Nigerians are now committing suicide or going on slave missions abroad.”

Nigerians were urged by the PDP not to give up hope because of how bad things are in their country. Instead, they were told to stay hopeful in the hopes that their democratic vote would win out in the end.