• Admit your failure, PDP tells Buhari

The Buhari administration has recovered N189bn from inflated personnel budgets under its fight against corruption, the Presidency has said.

It said the recoveries were made by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

This was part of the highlights of the achievements of the APC administrations as captured in a statement entitled ‘The Buhari Administration at six: Counting the Blessings One by One’ issued by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.

According to him, scrutiny of practices, systems and procedures of MDAs’ personnel cost from 2019 to 2020 by the ICPC led to the recovery of the money.

He said that in 2019 alone, the commission recovered N32bn worth of land, buildings and vehicles, while its audit of constituency projects covering 2015 to 2018 led to the recovery of N2bn of diverted funds and assets.

He also said Nigeria had signed an agreement on the identification and repatriation of illicit funds with the United Arab Emirates and successfully engaged the governments of Switzerland, Jersey Island, the US, the UAE and Liechtenstein, among others, in an effort to ensure the repatriation of Nigeria’s stolen assets.

He said, “A total of $622m in looted Abacha funds repatriated to Nigeria in two tranches in December 2017 and April 2020.

“The first tranche ($322m) is being disbursed as part of the Buhari administration’s Social Investment Programme interventions, while the second tranche ($311m) is being invested in the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), managed by the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA).”

Adesina said the Buhari administration extended more than N2tn in bailout packages to the 36 state governments to “enable them to meet their salary and pension obligations, especially in the face of dwindling oil revenues in the first three years of the administration.”

The support, he said, comprised N614bn Budget Support Facility; $5.4bn in Paris Club Refunds; N700bn in refunds for federal road projects embarked upon by state governments; and restructuring of N575.516bn loan facilities with commercial banks for 23 states to reduce the debt service burden on the states.

“In exchange for their loans to state governments, the banks were issued 20-year FGN bonds at a yield of 14.83 per cent per annum,” Adesina said.

He added, “The restructuring exercise benefited the states through reduction in the monthly debt service burden of states from between 55 per cent to 97 per cent for various states; and interest rate savings for the states ranging from three per cent to nine per cent per annum.”

Other listed achievements were investment of over a billion dollars in three flagship projects: Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway and resumption of work on the 337km East-West Road project, originally awarded in 2006.

He said the East-West Road would be completed in the first quarter of 2022.

Adesina said the administration had achieved a lot but only noticeable to those it referred to as dispassionate fair-minded, and not beclouded by political partisanship and undue cynicism.

The statement said that the sixth anniversary of the administration holding on Saturday (today) offered an opportunity to reflect and recount the impact of the government.

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked President Buhari to use his May 29 speech to admit the failure of his government.

It stated this in a statement issued by its spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP said the APC failed to record any landmark achievement in the last six years.

The statement read, “President Buhari and the APC must know that Nigerians are no longer interested in their stage-managed Presidential addresses as well as the circus show of their so-called APC Legacy Awareness Campaign, particularly in the face of the horrendous situation they have plunged our nation.

“This is because, in the last six years, President Buhari’s speeches have always been litanies of false claims, empty promises and lame excuses for failures, which the APC, in its penchant for lies, propaganda and beguilement, wants to accentuate with their legacy awareness campaign.

“If indeed the Buhari Presidency and the APC have any achievement to showcase, would it be organising an awareness campaign to seek the understanding of Nigerians for its mass failures?

“It is trite wisdom that their works ought to be speaking for themselves like those of the PDP administration which are still being seen today in every sphere of our national life.

“If they have anything to show, would President Buhari be begging that history should be kind to him for his failures? Would he go to faraway Paris and France to declare that his administration is being plagued by ill-luck?

“Our party vehemently rejects this attempt by APC leaders to claim that their party failed because of the challenges that have befallen our nation when in reality, the APC and the Buhari Presidency should be held responsible for their own failures.”