A former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka and ex-Information Minister, and Ijaw Leader, Chief Edwin Clark have taken umbrage at statements made by the Ministers of Transportation and his Information and Culture counterpart, Rotimi Amaechi and Alhaji Lai Mohammed, respectively, against the feats recorded by the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Responding to claims by Amaechi that President Muhammadu Buhari met an empty treasury, Chidoka reminded the minister that the Buhari administration inherited foreign reserves of $28.6bn from the Jonathan administration.
He also said a budget of over N4tn was handed over to Buhari by Jonathan on May 29, 2015, declaring that Amaechi’s comment wasn’t only unfortunate but wasn’t supported by facts readily available in the public domain. He said, “As a member of the Federal Executive Council that handed over to the current administration, I am disturbed that this urban myth of empty treasury is still the subject of conversation by a senior government member. “Also, I am confused about what the minister means when he says by the time we came in, as he was not appointed minister until six months after the May 29 handover. Since he was not a minister on the handover date, it may be pertinent to present him with the facts again. “On May 29, 2015, President Buhari inherited foreign reserves of $28.6 billion, according to official data still present on the website of the Central Bank of Nigeria, as well as $5.6 billion Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas Limited dividends. Also, a 2015 budget of over N4 trillion was handed over to the incoming administration by the outgoing Jonathan government.
“Furthermore, the Jonathan administration left a total of $2.2 billion in the Excess Crude Account on May 29, 2015(as verified by the Ministry of Finance both by the immediate past minister and the incumbent). “To further create context, I would like the minister of transport to note the country’s economic indices after 1,849 days of President Jonathan’s Presidency from May 06, 2010, the date he took over from President Umaru Yar’Adua to the handover date of May 29, 2015. “On May 29, 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari inherited an economy that, by the testimony of the World Investment Report, prepared by the Geneva-based United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), was the number one destination for foreign direct investment in Africa. “In the five years of President Jonathan, Direct Foreign Investment stood at about $35.25 billion. You can compare this to the $11.55 billion Direct Foreign Investment received from 2016 to 2020.”
Chidoka’s statement further said that the Jonathan administration handed over a $550 billion economy (largest in Africa and 26th globally) and a diversified economy. “On May 29, 2015, President Jonathan left behind an economy with a stable currency, where the naira exchanged for 199 to $1, and Nigeria had a single-digit inflation rate. Today, after 2, 406 days of the current administration headline inflation rate hovers above 15%. “Under President Jonathan, the unemployment rate stood at 7.5% (better than European Union) today. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, six and half years after Governor Amaechi’s government came in, unemployment is 33%. “Before the government came in, Nigeria’s poverty rate was 32% as of May 2015. We need not compare it against 71% today after 78 months of President Buhari’s administration.
“Our external debt as of May 2015 stood at $7.3 billion, the Gini coefficient (degree of inequality) was not different from China’s as of 2015. In 343 weeks and four days of the current administration, our external debt has ballooned to $37.9 billion as of September 2021. It is important to point out that over 48% are bilateral and commercial loans. “With the facts above, I am sure that the minister of transport will rethink his fixation on the past and focus on the clear and present danger of an economy on the path to Argentina – sovereign debt default. “In the face of declining revenues, available public data revealed that external debt servicing gulped $1.82 billion between January and September 2021; this is 43.9% higher than the $1.27 billion spent in the corresponding period of 2020. “In the same period of January to September 2021, Domestic debt servicing rose to N1.74 trillion from N1.53 trillion recorded in the same period of 2020.
“These issues should worry the Honourable Minister, coupled with unlocking the asphyxiating gridlock that Apapa port has created in the economy. “2406 days after, a clear 557 days (1 year five months) more than President Jonathan governed Nigeria; this administration’s economic policies and heightened insecurity have left the country comatose. “Minister Amaechi and the APC government should stop this perennial blame game and focus on redeeming its tattered image by signing the electoral bill passed by a legislature it controls.” Also, Chief Clark took a swipe at the information minister for saying that if not for President Muhammadu Buhari, terrorists would have declared Nigeria as an Islamic state. Clark, who warned Lai Mohammed against garbing himself with a propagandist toga as if he was still the national publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), urged him to use his office to build bridges among Nigerians, adding that it was not true that President Buhari expelled Boko Haram from 14 local government areas of Borno State.
According to him, it was Jonathan’s administration that flushed out Boko Haram insurgents just before the 2015 general elections from the 14 local government areas they held in Borno State, adding that lies are being fabricated against the former president because some people think they alone have the exclusive right to that position. In a statement yesterday in Abuja, Clark who noted that it was Jonathan’s administration’s action that enabled elections to hold in the local government areas, said that the minister’s recent statement was fallacious and misleading. “It is a blatant falsehood for Alhaji Lai Mohammed to claim that but for President Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria would have been Islamised, that it was President Buhari’s government that sent Boko Haram out of the fourteen Local Government Areas in Borno State,” he asserted.
The Ijaw leader said that what gave Mohammed the impetus to make the statement is the fact that “Nigerians have not dispelled this fraudulent and false claim that it was President Muhammadu Buhari’s government that expelled the Boko Haram group from the 14 local government areas of Borno State.” According to Clark, no patriotic Nigerian will believe Mohammed’s statement that it was President Buhari that prevented the takeover of Nigeria by the Islamic group. Instead, he added that “most Nigerians have the strong feeling that it is his (Buhari’s) government that has given or created the environment for the sect to return and be more daring. With all the menacing activities of this group, no armed herdsmen have been arrested. Is it by coincidence?” He said Mohammed decided to garb himself with the propagandist toga, which he used to wear as the publicity secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), forgetting that he is today, the information minister of the country, a position which he should use to build bridges between the federal government and the people of Nigeria, and across all divides in the country.
The Ijaw nationalist recalled that while negotiations were being suggested with the insurgents, they chose then Major Gen. Buhari as their chief negotiator. Clark added, “Setting the records straight: It is pertinent to reiterate that Boko Haram was expelled from the 14 local government areas of Borno State by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s government through the engagement of combined forces who were assisted by hired mercenaries. “Prior to the period the sect was expelled, they were occupying 14 local government areas in the state. As a matter of fact, it was as a result of this that the elections could not be conducted at the initial scheduled date and had to be postponed.