President Muhammadu Buhari has said he is surprised that in spite of the atrocities committed by the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, it is still making efforts to come back to power in 2019.
Speaking at an interactive session with community leaders to mark the president’s 2-day working visit to Kano on Thursday, Mr Buhari said Nigerians would never forget PDP’s 16 years of misgovernment.
According to Mr Buhari, corruption thrived during the administration of PDP, lamenting that the Nigerian treasury was rendered empty during the party’s reign.
He added that the party performed woefully on Security and economy.
He said the change agenda of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was to fight Boko Haram insurgency, corruption and revamp the economy, adding that his government was recording successes, but fighting corruption was the most difficult among the three agenda.
Mr Buhari added that Nigerians must understand the difference between democratic and military administration, adding that since his military regime, corruption was fighting back, as he himself ended in jail for about 3 years.
When I was a military head-of-State, I arrested and jailed some politicians on alleged corruption. Only two of them, late Bilyaminu Usman, former state minister, and Mallam Adamu Ciroma were found clean. But since that time, corruption was fighting back, as I myself was not jailed for more than two years.
This is a country where we found a judge, hiding foreign and domestic currencies running into millions, and 4 diplomatic passports in his house. This is the man that sends people to 20 years in jail for committing corruption, now he is found wanting. Mr Buhari lamented.
He also recalled that from 1999 to 2014, Nigeria produced 2.1 million Barrel of crude oil per day at the rate of at least $100, lamenting that the money were nowhere to be found under the opposition PDP.
Unfortunately, when we came on board, the price of oil crashed to $28. From $28, it rose to $37 up to $40. I went to the Central Bank of Nigeria, because everywhere in the world knew what Nigeria got at that time. I then asked, what about what has been saved for the country, I was told at the CBN that nothing was left in the treasury but liabilities.
I couldn’t believe it because it is lie. They said the money was used in food and fuel importation, while we produce our own food in the southeast, southwest, northeast and Northwest. Most of the peoples in these regions produce their own food because they are not government workers, as such, they can’t buy foreign food. This is a lie.
When we investigated how the fuel was imported, sadly, we found that more than half of the money were going in bogus deals between the importers and the buyers in connivance with the CBN officials. They don’t care about the plight of the remaining Nigerians, he emphasized.