The Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Ndudi Elumelu, has called on members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to resolve their differences and work together towards salvaging the country from its terrible state.
Elumelu, stated this during the 92nd National Executive Committee (NEC) Meeting of PDP held yesterday at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja.
The minority leader said Nigerians have lost hope in the administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as corruption and treasury looting have taken center stage with the nation being laid bare to terrorists, bandits, kidnappers and thugs who have now taken control of territories, marauding highways, razing communities, killing, maiming and kidnapping citizens on daily basis with nothing done to salvage the situation.
He said within a space of six years, the APC has succeeded in wrecking the once thriving economy handed over to it by the PDP in 2015.
Elumelu said the country has been turned into the poverty capital of the world with 33.3 per cent unemployment rate, as over 60 million flourishing businesses are closed down and about 83 million Nigerians now unable to afford their daily meals and other necessities of life.
He frowned that the nation ranks 98th out of 107 in Global Hunger Index, as cost of essential goods and services have skyrocketed above the reach of most Nigerians.
He said the productive sectors are crippled by corruption, ineptitude and wrong economic policies of the APC administration, which has made the naira tumbled from N167 in 2015 to a disheartening N522 to a dollar today.
According to Elumelu, the APC government has continued to mortgage the sovereignty and future of the nation with reckless borrowing and accumulated N33.107 trillion debt for which it has nothing to show but decayed infrastructure and a desolate economy.
He warned that the proposal to borrow another N5. 62 trillion for the 2022 budget will increase Nigeria’s debt stock to N38.7 trillion, with no clear-cut repayment plan.
Elumelu stressed that the situation of the country under the APC has become so horrible that the youths are fast losing hope in the nation with compatriots leaving the country in droves while others resort to suicide as option.
He said the party should revive, rescue and return the country to the path of peace, stability and progress, just as the citizens are beginning to put their confidence back on the party following the manifest of the PDP governors in their massive and unprecedented human capital and infrastructural development in all sectors of life in their respective states.
The minority leader pointed that in Nigeria today, it is only the state governors elected under the platform of the PDP that are commissioning landmark projects and executing legacy programmes and policies that have direct bearing to the wellbeing of the people.
He added that the resilence of the party’s lawmakers at the Federal and State level, as well as the outspokenness of leaders and members of the party in firmly defending the rights and interests of Nigerians on critical national issues, have also revived the confidence of citizens.
“In a truly democratic political party like the PDP, where the voices and interests of all are accommodated, disagreements of this nature are bound to arise. Nevertheless, our ability to successfully navigate through the challenges must be paramount at this point in time. This is because our unity, as a party, reinforces and strengthens the confidence Nigerians repose on the PDP as the platform that holds the solution to the horrific situation the APC has plunged our nation into,” he said.