Squandered Wealth: PDP Still Has Questions To Answer – Buhari

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) still owes
Nigerians explanation on how it expended the
humongous resources that accrued to the country
from oil sales between 1999 and 2014, President
Muhammadu Buhari has said.
President Buhari
Receiving the leadership of organized labour
which came to felicitate with him on his electoral
victory at State House, Abuja, Thursday, the
President said the current administration met a
country with dilapidated infrastructure all round in
2015, and it calls to serious question what the
party that was in power for 16 years did with the
country’s earnings from oil, which reached a peak
during the period.
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“PDP has not successfully explained to the
country what they did with the money,” President
Buhari said. “There were no roads, no rail, no
power. They said they spent $16 billion on
power, but where is the power? The irresponsible
expenditure of that period has not been explained,
and Nigerians deserve an answer on that terrible
mismanagement of the country.”
The President thanked organized labour “for the
support and patriotism you have shown during
the presidential election, especially after the
unexpected postponement. You and your
members stepped in to support willing Nigerians
to exercise their civic and patriotic rights to vote.
You intervened as patriots, and not for political,
religious or tribal purposes. You simply did the
right thing during a difficult period for many of
us.”
On what Nigerians can look forward to in the next
lap of the journey, President Buhari said he would
continue pushing the Change Agenda, “and
remain focused on our core pillars of security,
economy, and fight against corruption.”
He urged organized labour to partner with the
government to make the country peaceful,
prosperous, and corruption free.
In his remarks, President of the Nigeria Labour
Congress (NLC), Comrade Ayuba Wabba, lauded
the President for being worker-friendly, as
exemplified in the granting of bailout funds to
state governments to pay backlog of salaries and
pensions.
Said the NLC President:
“We all remember the special bailout and budget
support you introduced to support state
governments during the recession. Your directive
during this intervention was that state
governments must offset accumulated arrears of
salaries and pension liabilities. I remember you
publicly asked state governors, ‘how do you
manage to sleep at night when the salaries of
workers in your state are not paid?’
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“For us, that was one of the finest moments we
have had with any President in this country…I can
stand here today and say your intervention was
the difference between life and death for many
workers.”
The labour leader appealed to the National
Assembly to earnestly pass the National
Minimum Wage Act, while also asking the
President to thereafter sign it into law within the
shortest possible time.
Organized labour pledged to remain “veritable
partner in progress with government,” counseling
the President to continue to “make the Nigerian
people, especially the poor, the centre-piece of
your policy initiatives and actions.”